


War and Victory

by tickandtemp



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, post-CoC, pre-GtO
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4464119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tickandtemp/pseuds/tickandtemp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One was named after the God of War, the other after the Goddess of Victory. One was an outcast, the other a royal princess. No one had expected them to forge a friendship, let alone a romance, and no one knew how they kept the latter a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pseudophoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudophoenix/gifts).



> Here is an explanation of the various locations featured in this chapter: http://autistic-boots.tumblr.com/post/125447168880/fliers-land
> 
> This chapter features part of Ares's and Nike's first year of life. This one takes place shortly before the first prophecy they experience, and for the most part, shows the milestones they achieved in their childhood.

            It was early January, according to the calendar of the Killers, and something very exciting was happening in the centermost part of the Capitol Proper of the Flier’s Land. Outside the Caves of Kratos, many bats, including advisers, judges, generals, and their children flew about, spreading news of Queen Athena giving birth. Her now eldest child, a dark-silver furred male named Castor, divided his attention between his mother’s ordeal and the hubbub outside. Castor remembered muddied details of his own birth; the excitement of several fliers, his mother naming him, his uncle and aunts whispering to each other, and the way they cooed over him while he nursed. He directed his attention away from his mother for a short moment and let an echo out into the open space outside. His call projected back an image of many fliers going about in panicked and excited flight, and he noticed that the hubbub generated by this birth was far greater than the excitement that had occurred during his own. Castor pushed down whatever jealousy threatened to bubble to the surface, and he kept his eyes and ears open for two bats; a messenger and a healer.

            “Are they coming this way?” Queen Athena asked through short breaths.

            Castor spotted two female bats. One slender flier sported brown and gray stripes that blended together, and Castor recognized her as Ariadne the Healer. Just behind her, a completely brown bat with an oddly plump abdomen flapped her wings to compensate for her weight. Castor had met her many times before, and he knew her as Penelope the Messenger. Ariadne and Penelope were headed toward Queen Athena’s cave.

“Yes, they are coming this way,” Castor reassured her.

            Ariadne landed lightly in Queen Athena’s cave and immediately attended to her, checking for any signs of distress, poor health, or other problems. Penelope, who landed awkwardly due to her additional weight, took her place beside Castor, and they could only watch as a black-and-white striped head emerged from the silvery-white queen. One bat coasted close by the cave, caught a peek of the baby, and spread the news to other fliers. They began to gossip about who could be the father of the new royal child. Like most bats, Queen Athena didn’t keep track of paternity, but that didn’t stop the fliers outside from guessing which male was lucky enough to be chosen by the queen.

            Slowly, but surely, Ariadne guided Queen Athena through the process of childbirth, and the striped baby bat came into the world. Sighs of joy and the sounds of cooing filled the caves, bouncing off the walls until anyone who came close to the cave’s edges could detect it, and those random sounds of excitement soon transformed into an organized, harmonious and joyous echo song. Castor fluttered down from his ledge to get a look at the bat child, and he nudged its legs open apart with his nose. Ariadne soon got a look and laughed.

            “Queen Athena,” Ariadne said. “You have yourself a fine little girl.”

            The striped pup climbed onto her mother to nurse. Queen Athena’s siblings, who had been waiting and watching at the edge of the queen’s private birthing cave, stepped in to peer at the newborn child. The oldest, the Crowning Brother Hyperion, was the first to nuzzle her.

            “Castor,” said Hyperion. “You are now the Crowning Brother to this child, here. How do you feel about that?”

            “I suppose the same way you felt about it with Queen Athena.”

            “This child, that child,” hushed Calliope, the second oldest sister of the family. “We should give her a name.”

            “But what?” asked Parthenope, the youngest sister to Queen Athena. “I have been told that you are rather indecisive with names.”

            Queen Athena shook her head as she nursed the child. “Only because I was not sure if I were to get a boy or a girl. I did have a few names in mind, but none of them seem to suit my little one, here.”

            “Princess… Rhea?” Parthenope suggested.

            “Princess… Mnemosyne?” Calliope asked. “Or… perhaps Princess Asteria?”

            “No, no, none of those suit my little girl,” Queen Athena shook her head.

            The bat child let out a little purr and looked up at her uncle and aunts. The adult bats peered back, each one giving her a kiss on the head, and the bat responded by making a strange and amusing loud noise. Everyone in the cave, including Ariadne, Penelope and Castor, began to laugh, and the baby made the noise again. Finally, she went back to nursing, and Hyperion came up with a name.

            “Perhaps,” he hummed. “Princess Nike?”

            Queen Athena closed her eyes and nudged her daughter.

            “Yes,” she nodded. “Nike.”

            Hyperion called to the bats just outside Queen Athena’s cave. “As excited as you all are, I ask that you leave and take your celebratory noise elsewhere!”

Aside from Queen Athena’s immediate family, only Penelope and Ariadne were allowed to stay. Ariadne examined little Nike and declared her to be a rather healthy baby. Calliope and Parthenope switched between discussing the matter of raising Nike and the issue of their own future pregnancies. Meanwhile, Ariadne and Penelope made noises at the little girl, and Hyperion and Castor talked about the duties of the Crowning Brother.

            “You will be the one to escort Nike when she becomes of age to rule,” Hyperion told Castor.

            “And what happens if something happens to Nike, or my mother does not have a female heir?”

            Hyperion sighed. “Most likely, Calliope will rule. Do not worry about not being the next in our line. You have many other opportunities to be in a position of authority. I, for example, also act as a judge in our courts. You will find your role, and as a Crowning Brother, you will have much influence.”

            As Castor and Hyperion conversed, Penelope revealed her own swelling abdomen to Ariadne and Queen Athena. Both females shook their heads, and Penelope let out a pained sigh.

            “I do not know why you have not yet given birth,” Ariadne said.

            “Nor I,” Queen Athena added with a slight yawn. “If your child grows any more, you will have trouble with flight, let alone birth.”

            Penelope chuckled. “Why do you think Ariadne always flies with me? As much as I enjoy being a messenger, I am afraid that this pregnancy is taking a toll on my body.”

            “It is true,” Ariadne said. “As a healer, I am very vigilant about my sister’s health, and I am unable to help as many as I would like. Now, I teach my son, Eros, various aspects about my occupation so that others may receive help.”

            Queen Athena peered at Penelope’s swelling belly with concern. “I worry about the worst possible outcome. Do you think she would benefit from a human doctor? They have tools that we cannot use.”

            Ariadne shook her head. “I do not know. Many of their females die in childbirth. Sometimes they try to help a pained mother, and other times, they assume that the mother will die anyway, and they remove the child at the mother’s expense. I am not confident with the approach they will take with my sister.”

            Queen Athena directed her next comment at Penelope. “They did well with your eldest daughter. I recall you being so grateful that you let them name her, and you released her into their care. She is now a diplomat and an expert in the human’s language, is she not?”

            Penelope nodded. “Yes, Aurora. She works with the royal family, lives primarily in the human’s land, and she barely knows who I am. I do not want the same for my next child. I want to birth it, and I want to name it.”

            “She has a name in mind,” Ariadne added. “It is Ares.”

            “And if you do not survive this birth?” Queen Athena asked. “Who would care for it?”

            “Ariadne would,” Penelope insisted. “She will not neglect him. We have discussed this extensively.”

            Queen Athena said one last thing before letting the subject rest. “It seems as if you have made up your mind. I just hope that you have thought extensively of the consequences, both for you and for the child.”

            About a week passed. Somewhere in the Clotho Caves, where many common flier females lived with their newly born children, Penelope underwent the same ordeal. Unfortunately, she did not survive.

            Penelope did not have an audience. She only had her sister, Ariadne, her nephew, Eros, and two messengers that she often worked with, Silenus and Carmanor, who moved to and from the border regions. While Ariadne helped Penelope give birth, Silenus and Carmanor whispered to themselves about Penelope’s possible death. They both agreed that, if Penelope died, they would both take her body to Thanatos Chamber, located directly under Capitol Proper and accessible through various tunnels. Silenus first mentioned Charon’s Entrances, located in the various border regions, but Carmanor disagreed, saying that it would be much quicker to use the Atropos Tunnels, located in the Lachesis Plains that were adjacent to the Clotho Caves. There, in Thanatos Chamber, Silenus and Carmanor could mourn and deal with Penelope’s body properly.

Sometime during her childbirth, Penelope began to have difficulty breathing, and Ariadne instructed Eros to guide her through proper breathing patterns.

            “Breathe in,” Eros said to a struggling Penelope. “Breathe out slowly, then take in another deep breath.”

            “Silenus,” Ariadne snapped. “Do not just hang and watch! Push against that side of her abdomen with your snout, and I will do the same on this side. It is clear that she cannot birth this child alone!”

            Ariadne began to push on one side, and Silenus on the other, albeit without Ariadne’s technique. As a large head with black fur emerged from Penelope’s nether regions, she let out a pained cry. Ariadne and Silenus kept helping her to the best of her ability, and they did not stop until Carmanor heard something in Penelope snap.

            “This pup has clearly been inside for too long!” Carmanor panicked.

            “It is her pelvis,” Ariadne said. “Penelope, we will have to pull your child out. It will cause much pain.”

            “Just… get… him… out,” Penelope cried as she gasped for air.

            “I cannot help her anymore, Mother,” Eros shook his head.

            “Just help me extract the child,” Ariadne instructed. “I have told you how before. As for you, Silenus, Carmanor, you will deliver the news as to whether or not my sister survives.”

            The two male bats nodded. Ariadne did not bring up the subject of Thanatos Chamber, for she didn’t want to frighten Penelope, but the two male bats knew what to do.

            Eros and Ariadne nudged the child’s head forward with their noses, pulling her out faster than Penelope could cope with. The mother bat cried in pain when she could breathe, and tried to gasp for air when she couldn’t. She was too weak to flutter her wings in distress. As the black-furred pup emerged from his mother, Penelope lost most of her strength, and when the baby clung to her dark brown fur to nurse, she was too weak to lift her head to kiss him.

            “It is a male,” Ariadne said, referring to the unusually large newborn.

            Penelope could barely nod. “Ares,” she said. “That is his name.”

With that, she let her last breath, her head tilted back, and her once flickering eyes lost their vibrant shine.

            Silenus and Carmanor whispered to themselves. Carmanor nodded solemnly before flying off to deliver the news, and Silenus hung at the edge of the cave, facing a dead Penelope. He closed his eyes, projected a noise to see how his voice would bounce around the cave, and let out a string of solemn sounds that formed an echo song of mourning.

            To everyone’s surprise, Ares stopped nursing from his dead mother, tuned his ears to the sound of Silenus’s song, and imitated it with his immature, high-pitched voice. He could only project one round of the mourning song before its meaning dawned on him, and when he poked at his mother’s lifeless body, he let out a sharp, anguished cry that sent shivers down the spines of those who watched.

            Ariadne lowered her head. “This should not be the time for Ares to learn his first echo song, and this should not be the song he has to learn.”

            Silenus and Carmanor, remembering their previous discussion, tried to pry Ares from his dead mother. Ares cried louder, but Silenus kept his grip on the baby. Carmanor dragged Penelope’s body and Silenus gave Ares to Ariadne. Silenus and Ariadne nodded to one another, and the male helped Carmanor take Penelope away from the Clotho Caves, toward the Lachesis Plains, and eventually, into Thanatos Chamber.

            Ares whimpered, trying to crawl off of Ariadne, but the female bat clung onto the child.

            “I recall my first,” Eros said to Ariadne. “I was some weeks old, and it was a joke song that I learned at a party. It was cause for celebration.”

            “Perhaps I can get him to forget, and the next song he learns will be one of joy. Then, we can celebrate it as if it is his first.”

            But no matter how hard Ariadne tried, no matter how Ariadne distracted Ares with other things to learn, and no matter how Ariadne treated him as if he were her own son, Ares would not forget his dead mother, nor would he forget the first echo song he learned.

* * *

            Nike, the first daughter of Queen Athena, and the Crown Princess of the Fliers, learned her first echo song some few days after Ares’ birth. It had been sometime after Silenus the Messenger had told a few royal advisers that Ariadne the Healer was caring for an orphaned black bat, and that anyone who needed healing would have to seek out Eros. A few advisers and other officials deduced that Penelope had died, and as gossip and news usually does, the news of Penelope’s death quickly reached Queen Athena. Queen Athena mourned Penelope, as per custom, and her son, Castor, tried to lift the spirit by urging his mother to remember the happy life that Penelope lived.

            “Mother,” Castor said. “Do you recall the comedic echo song that Penelope taught me?”

            Queen Athena recalled the memory. “I recall you passing by Penelope and mocking her song.”

            “It is a good song to remember,” Castor said. “To lift one’s heart. Shall I perform it for Penelope? To remember her life?”

            “I suppose so,” Queen Athena. “But modify it, so that others do not mistake your intentions.”

            Castor nudged his mother in acknowledgement, and then he nudged little Nike’s head to catch her attention. The little girl opened her eyes, let out delighted noises, and watched as Castor faced the far end of their cave. He let out a series of amusing sounds that formed the beginning of the song, which made Nike giggle, and he made a few more solemn sounds. That way, anyone who heard him knew that Castor was simply remembering Penelope’s life, not celebrating her death.

            Nike, an energetic little pup with an eagerness to learn, attempted to mimic Castor’s song. Queen Athena licked the top of Nike’s head and purred.

            “Penelope would have loved you,” she whispered to Nike.

            “I do it, I do it,” Nike babbled before letting out a garbled version of Castor’s song.

            “Unusually articulate, she is,” Castor nodded approvingly.

            “A good song for Nike to learn,” Queen Athena hummed. “A private celebration should do.”

            And so Queen Athena hosted a private party for Princess Nike, inviting only Hyperion, Calliope, and Parthenope. As Princess Nike was still very young, Queen Athena did not want to overwhelm her, so she kept the celebration restricted to the Caves of Kratos. No one outside those caves, even if they lived in the Capitol, was invited. During the celebration, Princess Nike boldly and proudly performed her garbled echo song for the guests, which was rewarded with praises of both Princess Nike’s lovely voice and remarkable intelligence.

            As for Ares, he received no celebration, nor did he want one.

            The next milestone of every young bat’s life was their first flight. Many bats first fly when they are just over two weeks old and bubbling with excitement and curiosity. The shier and more cautious bats wait a few days, or even another week, before they test out their delicate wings, but only on rare occasions was a bat pup bold enough to fly early.

            Ares, the black-furred, overgrown, orphaned bat, was one of those pups.

            He had been alive for about a week and a half, yet he proved himself to be as strong as Nike was bright. He had seen other young bats take their flights, most of them performing when they were at least two weeks old, and he had a desire to prove himself to be as good as they were. As young as he was, he was somewhat self-conscious, and he had an urge to grow faster than anyone else. Ariadne and Eros had taken Ares to Hedone Grounds, a popular play area in their area of the Lachesis Plains, and the little pup gazed at the flying children with amazement. Wanting in on the action, he observed the movement of the various wings, pushed himself off of Ariadne, and flapped his wings to take off.

            “I must fly over him,” Eros huffed. “In case he tires.”

            While Ares’ flight patterns lacked the usual grace of the more adept bats, his rapid flapping of his wings revealed his strength. Unfortunately, some dust brushed against his nose, and his forceful sneeze propelled himself backward. Both Ariadne and Eros laughed as Ares reoriented himself.

He kept himself afloat for a good ten minutes, much to the surprise of others, and he quickly gained a reputation. Eros sensed that Ares would lose energy soon, so he gripped the younger bat with his feet, and Ares protested, despite tiring quickly.

            “Fantastic, Ares, wonderful!” Ariadne praised him. “Your mother would be proud.”

            Though Ares couldn’t articulate any words, the excited noises he made indicated that he wanted to fly again. Ariadne and Eros laughed at his enthusiasm.

            “I am surprised,” Eros said. “He has not had enough milk to be this strong.”

            “Now this, we can celebrate,” Ariadne said, and for the first time in Ares’ life, he was filled with joy.

            Nike, being a week older than Ares, performed her first flight on the same day. Since she waited until she was at least two weeks, she had more time to observe how others flew, and she had enough patience to fly with a bit more grace. When she first took off from her mother, she flapped her wings a few times before keeping them stretched out to glide. She glided back to her mother, landing lightly without the usual awkwardness of a first time flier. Castor did not need to watch over Nike when she flew, and her proud mother wrapped her wings around her when she decided to rest.

            “Mama,” Nike yawned after her first flight.

            “You were lovely,” Queen Athena cooed. “Hyperion, was she not lovely?”

            Nike’s uncle, who had been watching from a distance, nodded approvingly. However, Queen Athena’s sisters had not contained their emotions as Hyperion had, and Calliope and Parthenope squealed over Nike’s accomplishment.

            “She will be a very graceful and agile flier,” Calliope said.

            “Imagine Nike at her coronation,” Parthenope cried. “Her flight pattern will surpass her mother’s!”

            “Do not say such things!” Calliope snapped. “Their patterns will be of equal grace and beauty.”

            “It is all right,” Queen Athena reassured her youngest sister. “That is what I want for my eldest daughter.”

            Unlike the celebration for Nike’s first echo song, the party for her first flight was far less private. Everyone who lived in the Capitol was invited, and many brought gifts made by both bats and humans. During the celebration, Nike attempted to fly several times, and each attempt was better than the last. As Nike improved her flight, she proved to be not only agile, but also quick.

            By the end of their first few months of life, Ares grew to be a strong, muscular child, while Nike grew to be a swift, agile flier and a rather graceful young princess.

* * *

            Some time between three and four months, every bat child would learn a thing or two about hunting. The youngest ones would learn how to catch small mites while flying, while the older ones would learn how to haul large fish out of wide streams. Nike, who was mostly confined to the Capitol, flew around, catching quick mites before they had the chance to flee. Sometimes, she would learn to catch small fish from the nearby streams, but she proved far more adept at catching quick, weightless things.

Ares, having grown some, ventured out of the Clotho Caves, where many young, flightless bats spent their days. Now that he was strong enough to fly and old enough to act on his own will, he convinced Ariadne and Eros to let him go into the Lachesis Plains, where other common fliers his age would play games and learn skills of all sorts.

Ares decided to challenge himself by seeing what sort of large fish he could catch. Often, he would latch onto a fish too heavy for him to lift, and he would only be able to hold it for a few moments before letting it back into the water. Eros would have to catch it as it fell and set it aside for Ares to eat. Eros was secretly glad that Ares was willing to learn and grow quickly. If he hadn’t, Eros would spend more time caring for Ares then he would learning about a job he wanted to perform. Though learning about Ariadne’s healing techniques proved useful in certain situations, it wasn’t a job that interested him, and he spend more time learning about the jobs of explorers.

            It was only a matter of time before Ares started to ask questions about Eros’s interests.

            “Can I explore too?” he would ask. “I promise I will be careful!”

            “Not now,” Eros would laugh. “You still have to master catching food.”

            Ares would sulk, but not for long, as he found new things to do. Sometimes he would practice flying, and sometimes he would build up his strength by lifting heavy things. Over time, his strength surpassed his peers, and his impressive feats gained him both friends and rivals. His new friends, Telemachus and Alala, would find new things for him to accomplish, and when Ares was busy trying to master something new, the two weaker bats would look out for anyone seeking to be Ares’ rival. Telemachus and Alala didn’t worry, as they knew that anyone who would challenge Ares in a fight would quickly lose. No one their age knew any good fighting techniques, and everything would be about brute strength.

            Those intimidated by Ares’ strength instead attacked him through words and rumors.

            “Did you know that Ares has not even learned an echo song?” one would ask.

            “Did you know that Ares fell terribly when he first tried to fly?” another one said.

            Ares heard some of these rumors here and there, and he would seek reassurance from his friends and family. Telemachus and Alala said that he could fight anyone and win, while Eros and Ariadne urged him to ignore the whisperings of immature, frightful bats.

            “I do not know what to tell them,” Ares shook his head. “About the echo song.”

            “Ignore it,” Ariadne would say. “You learned it at birth.”

            “Tell them you just learned a threatening echo song,” Alala once said. “Then project it as a threat. Then they know you mean business.”

            “She is just blabbering,” Telemachus disregarded Alala’s words. “Just do not. I do not like fights.”

            There were some occasions when Ares fought. One notable rival, an orange male by the name of Icarus, frequently challenged him, and their fights often ended with a tie. These ties were a result of an adult interfering, but the fights ended by the fighters usually ended with Ares winning. Icarus would invent a reason for losing, such as illness or cheating on Ares’ part, and he would make sure such rumors spread. Ares had no interest in further conflict, but every time he heard such things, it bruised his ego, and he would again seek the reassurance of Telemachus and Alala.

            Nike, being the bright, energetic, and graceful princess that she was, considered herself above such petty conflict. She spent most of her time learning about rudimentary details of her duties as a princess, and since she proved herself to be adept with language, Queen Athena summoned Aurora for lessons on the English language.

            “I will teach you speech and reading,” Aurora explained.

            “What is reading?” Nike asked eagerly, fluttering her wings in excitement.

            “The humans make symbols with ink on parchment, and each small symbol represents a sound.”

            Castor, having learned some English from a different diplomat, helped Nike with her lessons, and Nike quickly caught up to Castor’s level of fluency. By the time she was approaching her fifth month of life, Nike mastered basic greetings and conversational words, and Aurora assessed that she could speak at the level of a four-year-old human. The golden bat told Castor and Nike that, when she was busy dealing with the humans, the siblings should practice their English amongst themselves, remembering the things she taught them.

            “Now, remember, amateur fliers often compensate for the lower pitches by over-exercising their lungs,” Aurora said. “Instead, let the words come out like purrs. Yes, it will sound less like human speech, but the humans can understand it still, and it will not be such a strain on one’s own throat.”

            Castor and Nike practiced their English, occasionally attempting to teach the children of advisers, judges, generals, and diplomats. Some of the children were already learning basic words, and some of them were more fluent than Nike. Nike often made up games dealing with translation to better learn the language. On one occasion, she created a new game in which she would rapidly utter a string of words in no proper order, and her fellow players would have to correctly translate the nonsense.

            “Flier, fish, cave, river, wing,” Ismene, a daughter of a general, attempted to translate.

            “You missed the last word,” Nike replied. “It is ‘nose.’”

            “My turn,” Castor announced, and he let out a string of English words so quickly that some of them blended together.

            “Build, human, drop, foot, butt,” Ismene laughed.

            “It was not ‘butt!’ It was a leg!” Nike corrected while giggling, but Ismene was too amused to care.

            “Foot butt!” Ismene kept laughing.

            “Nike was correct, and it was ‘leg,’ so quiet, you!” Castor reprimanded Ismene, but Nike, too, became amused with Ismene’s nonsensical chatter.

            “Foot butt!” Nike laughed, and she and Ismene exploded into a fit of giggles.

            “A graceful princess, indeed,” Castor said, shaking his head and vowing never to play this game again.

* * *

            Nike and Ares were about five months old when they first met. Ordinarily, one as common as Ares would not personally meet a royal bat like Nike, but the obnoxiousness of one and the curiosity of another brought them together in a rather amusing way.

            Nike begged Queen Athena to let Castor escort her around the various regions of the Flier’s land. While Queen Athena was initially reluctant, as she wanted her to focus on her lessons, Parthenope urged Queen Athena to loosen her restrictions for the child’s sake. Queen Athena gave in, saying that Castor could bring Nike to a region nearby, where many messengers lived with their children. Castor knew of a play area where many other bat pups frequented, and Queen Athena’s brother, Hyperion, believed that association with other children would do Nike some good.

            Castor and Nike flew out of the Capitol and into the region where Ariadne lived with Eros and Ares. Eros, who was almost grown, had been speaking with other potential explorers when they noticed Castor and Nike arriving, and they all gave a low bow. Castor and Nike bowed as well, but Nike was barely able to contain her excitement.

            “Where is the play area?” Nike asked as soon as she finished bowing. “The Hedone Grounds? In the Lachesis Plains? I have heard much of it. Are there many other children? Would they mind if I play?”

            “Nike, I know where it is,” Castor sighed. “And I suppose that these male fliers are learning for their future jobs. You must let them get back to work.”

            “Well, all right,” Nike said. “Goodbye, you!”

            “Goodbye, your highness,” Eros and his friends said.

            When Castor flew in with Nike, he urged her first to observe the play habits of the common bat children. He showed her secret play tunnels that some of the fliers frequented, but Nike could only avoid the other bat pups for so long. One female, a red and gold speckled bat named Alala, took notice of Nike and introduced herself.

            “My name is Alala,” she said. “I have heard of you, Princess Nike, but I did not think you would be here.”

            “I suppose it is a bit of a surprise,” Nike chuckled. “Do you have many friends?”

            “Some,” Alala replied. “I have two, Telemachus and Ares. I hope they are not getting into much trouble, since you are here.”

            Castor groaned at the prospect of unruly common bat children, but Nike’s ears perked up.

            “What do they do?” Nike asked.

            Alala shook her head. “You will have to see for yourself.”

            Nike and Castor followed Alala out of the secret tunnel. When Alala flew out, Castor and Nike watched from the edge of the tunnel as Alala flew down to a pair of bats, who were currently hurling insults at one another.

            Nike spotted an orange bat making faces at a larger black bat. Though the black bat looked larger, his face made him appear younger, and she was suddenly unsure what to make of him. She saw him flap his wings furiously as the orange bat made faces and comments at him, and Alala could do little but coast around the pair.

            “You ruined our part of the play area!” the orange bat spat. “You peed all over it, and now no one can play in it!”

            “That is for making up fake stories about me, Icarus!” the black bat replied, the pitch of his voice revealing his true age. “All because you cannot stand losing in a fight!”

            “You cheat in every fight we have, Ares!” Icarus spat back.

            “Stop, stop, before I tell an adult!” Alala cried. “And where did Telemachus go?”

            Icarus huffed. “To tell an adult, before this motherless flier tries to fight me.”

            Nike turned to Castor. “Does he really not have a mother? Is that true? What happened to his mother?”

            Castor sighed. “Do you not recall your first echo song?”

            Nike shook her head. “Uh, it was a funny one, but with sad parts, and I learned it from you, because there was someone you were remembering, some who…”

            Nike drew in a deep breath. When she watched the scene play out before her, she had a sudden urge to help Ares, but she wasn’t sure what she could do. She just remembered her first echo song, how hers had been a garbled version of a comedy song that Castor modified, how she celebrated the life of a flier she had never really met. It had never occurred to her that the flier she sung the song for had had a son.

            “Do not _ever_ say a thing about my mother!” Ares shouted back, and several flier children formed a ring about the orange and black bats.

            “Why not?” Icarus asked. “Everyone knows it.”

            “Do not do it, Ares,” Alala urged, but Ares was seething.

            “This is nonsense,” Castor sighed, itching his dark silver coat. “Perhaps we should leave. This is not good for you, not at this age.”

            “You play up your strength, yet you have not yet had an echo song!” Icarus scoffed, and a few of his friends joined in on the mocking.

            “Songless, songless!” many of the fliers near Icarus began to chant.

            As the chant grew louder, the fliers’ voices began to echo off the walls, and each repetition made the projected images more and more unbearable for Ares. Just behind Icarus, a male named Agon and two females, Circe and Nyx, chanted the loudest and made the cruelest faces, and when Icarus bared an obnoxious grin, Ares decided he had had enough.

            Nike saw Ares grimace and his muscles tense up, and she knew that the black bat was going to lunge at Icarus. Not wanting the conflict to get ugly, she emerged from the secret tunnel, shouting an elongated, “No!”

            However, it did little to stop Ares from propelling into Icarus, bumping him straight into his lackeys, and Icarus’s eyes met Nike’s. Nike only had a short time to gaze at the orange bat before Alala noticed her, and the red-gold speckled bat let out a sharp breath.

            “Princess Nike!” she gasped.

            Ares had torn out a chunk of orange fur with his teeth when he heard Alala announce the princess’s sudden arrival. At first, he thought that Alala was simply trying to distract him, but when he heard the other fliers gasp in surprise, he turned to see everyone bowing their heads to a black-and-white striped female, who couldn’t have been older than himself. Though he had never met Nike personally, he had heard stories of her, and he could tell that this was her.

            Just then, Telemachus flew in with Ariadne following closely behind. Telemachus was just about to warn everyone that he brought an adult when he caught sight of Nike, and he almost stopped flying in surprise. Ariadne, too, was stunned by Nike’s appearance, since she spent most of her time in the Capitol. Whatever Ariadne had been told, she had not been prepared for this.

            “What has happened here?” Ariadne demanded.

            Just then, Castor flew out from the tunnel and landed on a tall pillar just outside the ring of fliers that had formed earlier. Though not as important as Nike, Castor was still recognized and respected among fliers, and everyone bowed to him as well.

            “Crowning Brother Castor,” Ariadne said. “What has happened?”

            Castor simply shook his head. “Nonsense has happened here, some petty fight between young fliers. Perhaps I should not have brought my sister here.”

            Ares spat out the orange fur from his mouth. “What has happened here is–”

            “That Ares started a fight, and then ripped out some of my fur!” Icarus cut him off, and Nike felt genuinely angry.

            “From what _I_ saw,” Nike said, making graceful loops in the air to command authority. “Is that Icarus, here, said that Ares cheats in his fights, and then he called him motherless.”

            Icarus noticed Ariadne glaring at him and tried to defend himself. “Ares pissed all over the play area that my friends and I use, and he said it was for making up stories!”

            “You _do_ make up stories!” Ares spat back.

            “Do you think I made up you _peeing in our play area_?!” Icarus shouted.

            “And _then_ ,” Nike continued, making another loop to catch everyone’s attention. “He made up some nonsense about Ares not having had his first echo song.”

            Nike didn’t know whether or not it was rumor, but she doubted that someone like Ares wouldn’t have had it by now. She flew once around the circle of fliers, then in a vertical loop around Ares and Icarus, and then positioned herself in between the rival males. Alala took her place beside Telemachus, relaying some information about such recent events, and Nike cocked her head as she gazed at Icarus’s embarrassed face.

            “Why would you say anything about his mother, anyway? What does that have to do with this? And the echo song? How do you know he never had an echo song?” Nike asked before she flew in vertical loops around the orange bat. “Would you ever ask about _my_ echo song?”

            “No, Princess,” Icarus stumbled, which seemed to amuse both Ares and Castor. “I would never.”

            “Do you want to know what it is?” Nike asked. “Castor and I can perform it. These walls will do. Are you curious?”

            Before Icarus could answer, Nike positioned herself beside her brother, and they performed two rounds of it. First, they let out the happy noises associated with the comedic song, then they let out the modified, solemn noises associated with mourning, and then they returned to happier notes. When they finished the song, Nike swooped down to meet Icarus, and she flew vertical loops around him again.

            “Can you guess what that was?” she asked him.

            “N-no, Princess,” Icarus stammered.

            “A comedic song that my sister taught Castor,” Ariadne spoke up. “He must have modified it to make it a song of remembrance.”

            “And can you guess who my brother sung it for?” Nike asked.

            Ariadne knew who it was for, but did not say anything. Telemachus and Alala looked to each other for answers, but got nothing. Icarus’s lackeys, Circe, Nyx, and Agon, were speechless, and Icarus himself hung his head down in shame.

            “My mother,” whispered Ares, and Nike nodded.

            Ashamed, Icarus darted out of the play area, and Nike turned her attention to Ares.

            “Thank you,” Ares managed to whisper.

            Nike shook her head. “If Icarus’s story of you peeing in his play area is true, then you are still in trouble, but that is not my problem to solve. I think that is why Telemachus brought an adult.”

            With that, Nike and Castor flew back to the Capitol to report the story to Queen Athena. Meanwhile, the bat pups dispersed, gossiping about today’s events. Alala and Telemachus returned to their respective homes, Icarus’ lackeys spent the day sulking, and Ares returned with Ariadne back to their cave, where she doled out her own methods of discipline for Ares’ unruly behavior.

* * *

            While Castor disapproved of bringing Nike back to the common play areas, Queen Athena decided that Nike should be exposed to common children, so that she learn how to better interact with her subjects. After Castor had told Queen Athena of that day’s events, Queen Athena asked to speak with Nike privately, and Hyperion had his own private conversation with Castor. Hyperion told him that he related to Castor’s sense of protectiveness, but that Nike would ultimately have to learn how common fliers behaved. Meanwhile, Queen Athena consulted her sisters on the nature of Nike’s behavior, and they decided that, while it was noble of her to stand up for Ares, she really should have let an adult handle the situation.

            For the rest of that month, Nike would be brought to common play areas on some days, and when she arrived in the region where Ariadne, Eros, and Ares lived, the bat children knew better than to engage in petty conflict. While Ares and Icarus still had a rivalry, they cleaned up their act for the bat princess for their own individual reasons. Icarus still hung his head in shame whenever Nike passed by him, while Ares would try to meet her gaze in hopes of getting back a smile, let alone a greeting.

            Alala and Telemachus teased Ares relentlessly about it.

            “Are you starting your Changing early?” Alala asked. “Is that why you always want the princess to see you?”

            “Oomph, I think I can smell Ares letting out a scent!” Telemachus laughed.

            Alala and Telemachus pretended to faint from the stench.

            “Stop it!” Ares cried, but his friends kept on.

            “Ares likes the princess! Ares likes the princess!” Alala and Telemachus chanted.

            Nike, who was passing by their cave, heard the chanting, but she didn’t interpret it right. The romantic implications of the statement had flown over her head completely, and she took it to mean that Ares had desired to be her friend, so she flew down and landed in front of them with a big smile.

            “I did not think he would,” Nike giggled. “Since I had told him that he was still in trouble for peeing in Icarus’s play area.”

            “P-p-p-p-princess… Nike,” Ares stammered, embarrassed.

            “Ares likes the princess!” Alala chanted once more, causing Telemachus to explode in a fit of giggles.

            Once Telemachus could control his breath, he shouted, “Phew!” before he pretended to faint.

            “Phew!” Alala repeated. “You have a stench.”

            Ares knew what Alala was referencing; an odor emitted by males in their Changing, which became stronger when they experience their first stirrings. However, the meaning of this flew over Nike’s head, yet again, and she took it to mean something entirely different.

            “Yes, I suppose,” Nike shrugged. “I have heard that common bats do not clean themselves much, but I thought it was made up.”

            “Yes, that is what it is,” Ares stammered, suddenly wondering if this was the appropriate way to save face. “I do not clean enough. If I had known you were coming, I would have bathed first.”

            “No need,” Nike giggled. “Your ‘stench’ is not that bad. I must go, now. My mother must want me back for my English lessons.”

            “Of course. I understand.”

            “Well,” Nike sighed. “Goodbye.”

            When the striped bat flew off, Ares mentally kicked himself, and he banged his head against the wall.

            “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Ares uttered. “That was embarrassing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

            “Your stench is stronger!” Alala mocked, prompting a growl from Ares, but that did nothing to stop Alala and Telemachus from making fun of Ares’s supposed crush on Nike.

* * *

            “Sorry, Aurora, for being late,” Nike said when she landed, catching her breath.

            “It is fine,” Aurora smiled. “I heard that you were off playing.”

            Nike shook off a bit of dust from her striped coat. “In this one play area. There is a red and gold speckled bat named Alala, and she has two friends. Telemachus and Ares. Ares is a big black bat, and he lives with his mother’s sister.”

            Aurora laughed. “Now try that in English.”

            Nike took in a deep breath, which prompted Aurora to remind her of the purring trick, and Nike spoke in English.

            “I have friends in a play place in our land. Their names are Alala, Telemachus, and Ares. Ares has black fur, and he lives with his… aunt?”

            “Good,” Aurora replied in English. “Now, tell me why he lives with his aunt?”

            Nike sulked, remembering the first song she learned. “Because…” she struggled for the words. “Because his mother is dead.”

            “And do you know the name of his mother?” Aurora asked.

            Nike shook her head before switching back to Flier. “I can ask Castor.”

            “English, Princess Nike!” Aurora commanded.

            Nike sighed. “I will ask Castor for the name. When he comes back.”

            Aurora smiled. “He should be back anytime soon. I had allowed a short break for him, but that is about to end.”

            Just then, both of them caught sight of Castor’s dark silver wings as he coasted in for the landing. The older brother positioned himself next to Nike, who immediately asked him about Ares’ mother in Flier, and Aurora huffed as she reminded Nike that, since her English lesson was still in session, she would have to switch to English.

            “Fine,” Nike said before switching. “What is the name of Ares’s mother?”

            “Penelope,” Castor replied. “Her name is Penelope.”

            When Nike turned to Aurora, she saw the golden’s bat’s eyes go blank, and her face become expressionless. For a moment, she thought that either she or Castor had said something wrong, but she couldn’t think of anything insulting she had said to her that day. Perhaps Penelope was someone Aurora knew, but Aurora was just learning of Penelope’s death because she didn’t spend much time in the Flier’s land. Nike first repeated Aurora’s name, then poked her in the abdomen, and then said her name again, but it took a moment for Aurora to respond.

            “Is something wrong?” Nike asked in Flier, immediately worrying if she would be asked to switch to English.

            “No, no, nothing is wrong,” Aurora said. “It is just that, I was thinking of bringing you two to the human’s land for the purposes of language immersion, and I was thinking of how to propose the idea to your mother.”

            “Really?” Nike asked, fluttering her wings in excitement. “Would you really do this?”

            Aurora’s smile returned. “Yes, now consider yourself dismissed early. It will take me some time to convince your mother.”

            With that, Aurora took off.

            “What was wrong with her?” Nike asked. “Was it something I said?”

            Castor shook his head. “She must not have known about Penelope being Ares’s mother.”

            “But, why?” Nike asked. “Why did she look so worried? Is it because she is sad that Penelope is dead? Did she know Penelope?”

            “No, she did not,” Castor replied. “Penelope has said so herself that Aurora barely knows who she is. Aurora must have heard Penelope’s name somewhere, but it did not occur to her that Penelope is gone.”

            “But if Aurora did not know her, why does she care?”

            Castor let out a sigh. “Because, when Aurora was born, she was given to the humans, who had named her after helping with the delivery. She is adept in English because humans raised her. I assume that Aurora did not know recently, or until some time after Ares’s birth, that Penelope was her mother too.”

* * *

            For the past month, Ares noticed that a golden bat would occasionally speak with Ariadne, but she would never introduce herself. Instead, she would just watch him. For the most part, Ares was able to ignore it, but now that it was becoming more and more frequent, he just had to know what was happening.

            Alala was explaining a game to Nike when Ares noticed the golden bat staring at him while exchanging a few words with Ariadne. Ariadne’s son, Eros, was nowhere to be seen. Lately, he’s been spending a lot of time with males his age, and Ares knew that Eros was close to grown. Soon, Eros would celebrate his first birthday, choose a job of his own, and find a cave to live in. Ares thought about Eros while looking at the golden bat. _This gold bat cannot be much older_ , Ares thought to himself, _but she does act older than she looks_.

            “Ares, are you ready to play?” Nike asked.

            “He must be waiting for Telemachus,” Alala laughed. “I think he likes him more than me.”

            “I do not,” Ares huffed. “I just want to know who that gold bat is. She keeps talking to Ariadne.”

            Nike looked behind her. “Oh, that is Aurora. She was raised by humans and she teaches me English.”

            “And why does she stare at me so much?”

            Nike fluttered her wings and flashed a big grin. “Because you are her little brother.”

            “Her _what_?” Alala and Ares asked in unison.

            “Penelope was her mother, too,” Nike said, nodding toward the gold bat.

            Alala groomed her red and gold fur while Nike and Ares gazed at Aurora. Ariadne and Aurora seemed to be in deep conversation, shaking their heads rather often, and Ares imagined what the two grown females could be talking about. Was Aurora asking Ariadne about him? She was probably inquiring about Penelope’s death, Ares’s birth, and about his childhood. How much was Ariadne telling her? Whatever it was Aurora wanted to know, Ares hoped she would learn all about it soon, so that she would stop speaking to Ariadne in a hushed voice while keeping her eyes on him. Her constant gaze made him rather uncomfortable.

            Just then, a breathless Telemachus flew in and landed beside the group.

            “Did you hear? Alala, Ares? About the Overlander?”

            As soon as that last word came out of his mouth, everyone began to murmur about it. In only a few minutes, children and adults flew in and out the play area with the news, and it was only a matter of time before everyone would know about the Overlander’s presence.

            “Overlander?” Nike asked. “I heard little things here and there from my mother, but I was not supposed to hear.”

            Telemachus, Alala, and Ares all looked at her.

            “You mean, you knew, and you did not tell us?” Alala asked.

            Nike shrugged. “I told my friend, Ismene, but I did not think I needed to tell anyone else. I knew it would get to you, anyway.”

            “But you could have told us sooner!” Alala protested. “And we could have gone to the human’s land, and maybe we could meet him, or her, and we would know what he or she looks like, and we could…”

            “I am going to the human’s land soon, to learn English,” Nike replied. “I can tell you about the Overlander if I see her, or him.”

            Ares shook his head. “As if we just want to hear about it.”

            “That is the best I can do,” Nike hushed them. “I do not think Aurora will let me bring anyone else. Besides, how good is your English?”

            Alala huffed. “There are fliers there, are there not? We can speak to them!”

            “But you cannot speak to the Overlander,” Nike said. “I can.”

            Nike looked back to see Aurora summoning her. She bowed to her friends, told them she had to leave, and she took off. Telemachus picked at the small white patch of fur on his chest nervously, Alala fluttered her wings in annoyance, and Ares stared at Nike and Aurora curiously.

            “The princess knew about the Overlander,” Telemachus sighed before moving onto his gray body fur.

            “She is going to see the Overlander!” Alala cried. “Why do we not follow her?”

            “Our mothers will follow us,” Telemachus said. “I know that mine would force me back, for sure.”

            Alala scoffed. “Mine cannot force me to do anything! And Ariadne cannot make Ares do anything, right Ares?”

            Ares was too busy thinking about the golden bat. Was she his sister? Why didn’t he know this before? How could Nike have known about his sister before _he_ did? Worst of all, why didn’t Ariadne tell him anything?

            “ _Right_ , Ares?” Alala asked.

            “Why did I not know about Aurora?” Ares huffed to himself. “I have to talk to Ariadne!”

            Before Alala or Telemachus could say anything, Ares took off. He flew from the play area, through the familiar tunnels and open canyons, and made it to the homey cave that he now shared with Ariadne. It was one that she had once shared with Penelope, but now Ares took her place, and he was angry that he knew less about his own mother than he had originally thought.

            “Ariadne!” he called, and when the brown and gray striped bat greeted him, he cut her off. “Why did you not tell me about Aurora?”

            “Aurora?” Ariadne asked.

            Ares folded his wings closed and hung upside down on a ledge in the cave. “Yes, Aurora, _my sister_!”

            “I was going to, but I,” Ariadne said, only to be cut off again.

            “How could you not tell me that I had a sister?”

            Ariadne took a deep breath and tried to explain. “How could I? Penelope and Aurora hardly knew each other, Penelope spent most of her time here, Aurora was raised by the humans in Regalia, and Aurora gained more status working for the royal family than she would have with her own mother. Penelope gave up her golden pup when human doctors aided her with childbirth, and she let the humans name her. At the time, Penelope was rather low in rank, so no flier would ask any questions. It was not until I became a proficient healer and aided Queen Athena with her pregnancies did Penelope gain status, and Aurora cared little as to who her mother was. By the time Penelope was carrying you, Aurora completely forgot about her, so Penelope decided to have you, so that she can keep you and raise you.”

            “But she is dead! And I am here! And Aurora lives!” Ares shrieked. “My mother was dead, so why wait until now?”

            “Aurora only comes sparingly, and only to teach English to Queen Athena’s children,” Ariadne said. “She did not care to know of her dead mother until she learned how she died.”

            “Why did you not tell me?” Ares kept yelling. “I see her talking to you, and I see her watching me!”

            “But, you see, Aurora herself was not ready,” Ariadne sighed. “She wanted time to mourn the mother she never met, and she needed to come to terms with only having a brother left.”

            Just then, Eros landed in the cave, and Ares’s and Ariadne’s argument stopped. Eros could see that Ares was cranky, but he didn’t bother asking about it, and Ariadne quickly switched the subject to how Eros’s day was. The nearly grown bat, happy to recount the events, picked a ledge to hang on and told his story.

            “As you know, my first birthday will come at the end of this month,” Eros said. “And I will soon choose an occupation. Some friends and I are currently looking for vacant caves to the north.”

            “In the Boreas region to the north?” Ariadne asked.

            “No.”

            “Kaikias?” Ariadne asked again. “Just above Euros?”

            “Yes, the one closest to Regalia,” Eros replied. “That way, I can fly over there to meet human mappers. Explorers and mappers work together often, you know.”

            _Regalia… Regalia…_ Ares thought to himself, … _REGALIA!_ He knew that Aurora and Nike would be flying that way soon, and now he had two reasons to head that way. First, he wanted to meet the Overlander for himself, and second, he needed to speak with Aurora. He didn’t care whether or not Aurora was “ready” to meet him. All he knew was that he had questions, and that Aurora would have some answers. In any case, there was a reason that Aurora had been watching him for days now, and he needed to address it.

            “But do you have to be far?” Ariadne asked Eros.

            “Do not worry,” Eros laughed. “You may occasionally find me in the Caves of Eros.”

            Ariadne shook her head and laughed. “I recall giving that name to you as a joke, and now you decide to be true to it!”

            Ares had heard of the Caves of Eros before. They separated the inner districts, populated mostly by adult females and their children, from the border regions, populated mostly by male patrol bats. Fliers in their Changing often whispered about the things going on in the Caves of Eros, and many adult females returned from there with the expectation that they would soon carry a child. He knew that, one day, as an adult, he would fly past them to find a cave of his own in a border region, and that he would go to the Caves of Eros when the mood struck him. Now, being the child he was, he was not interested, but he did become curious about Eros’s new home cave in Kaikias, the border region closest to Regalia.

            “Eros?” Ares asked innocently. “Can you show me Kaikias?”

            Eros scoffed. “And why would I show you that? Are you not a little young for such things?”

            “But I want to become an explorer too! I want to know where they live! I want to meet the other explorers too!”

            “How do I know you can keep up?” Eros teased.

            Ares let go of his ledge and fluttered his wings to hover. “I can keep up! I am strong enough! I can keep up!”

            “All right, then,” Ariadne said. “Eros, you can take him tomorrow. It will give him something to do, and he will not get in a fight with Icarus in that silly play area he often frequents.”

            “It is settled,” Eros agreed. “Now you get some rest, Ares. We will have much flying to do tomorrow.”

            Ares tried to go to sleep that night, but he found himself unable to rest even after his family drifted off. Excited, anxious, and nervous, he kept thinking about the trip to Kaikias, and if he got lucky, he would be able to find Nike and Aurora on their way to Regalia. If he could slip away from Eros at just the right moment, he could follow the diplomat and the princess and get the answers he needed.


	2. The Overlander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Nike and Ares meet an Overland man for the first time, and then for the last time.

            “Well, this is it.”

            Ares let out a noise into the cave that Eros showed him. His voice projected back a narrow path with a somewhat high ceiling that split off into four different paths. He guessed that the four paths led to dead ends, which would serve as the four bats’ individual sleeping areas. Eros flipped himself upside down and rested on a ledge near the rightmost path. Ares surveyed the other paths before choosing a ledge next to Eros, but the older bat warned him against it.

            “Why?” Ares asked.

            “Because,” Eros replied. “My new cave fellows tend to do a bit of… experimentation.”

            Ares was about to scoot himself to the left when Eros caught him off guard. “Do not put your foot there!” Eros warned just as Ares caught his foot in something sticky.

            “What is that?” Ares asked, flying off the ledge and inspecting his foot.

            “Uhh,” Eros hesitated. “That is… some sap from the mushroom cave. My cave fellows must have visited it.”

            Ares was suddenly curious. “What is the mushroom cave?”

            “The mushroom cave and the experimentation of my cave fellows are something that you will not learn about for another three months at least,” Eros said.

            “Why?” Ares protested.

            “That is just the way of things,” Eros laughed. “Just as you will learn about the Caves of Eros in time.”

            Meanwhile, Aurora, Nike, and Castor stopped just before the Caves of Eros so that Nike could rest. Though she was quick, she was still a child, and she tired more quickly than the adults. Nike landed on top of a nearby cliff when she saw her mother’s sister, Calliope, coming from the opposite direction. Instantly, she tried to get Aurora and Castor’s attention.

            “Aurora, Castor, it is Calliope!” Nike said. “But what is she doing over here?”

            “She is coming from the Caves of Eros,” Castor explained, prompting Aurora to cock her head to the side. “Did you not know, Aurora, about the Caves of Eros?”

            “I have heard some things from other fliers,” Aurora said. “And I have passed by them, but I have not used them.”

            “Used them?” Nike asked. “Used them for what?”

            Aurora and Castor couldn’t help but chuckle at her innocent question.

            “Calliope has been in want of a child for some time,” Castor explained. “You can expect to have a cousin shortly after your first birthday.”

            “What about a younger brother or sister?” Nike asked.

            Castor shook his head. “Our mother does not need to go to the Caves of Eros for that. Are you rested enough? If so, we can fly past them and take a break in Kaikias.”

            Nike agreed, and the trio took off. When they flew through the Caves of Eros, Nike saw several caves stacked one on top of the other, and several adult males were picking caves to settle in. At first, Nike assumed that these adult males lived here, but then she recognized a few fliers that lived in the Outer Capitol. Flying past the caves were adult female fliers tuning their ears to the silly songs that the males projected into the area. At first, the males were flagrant and obvious with their singing, but when they saw the young princess flying through, they took a break from their singing long enough for her to pass them.

            “Why do they stop singing?” Nike asked Aurora.

            “Because it is improper for them to sing it to you,” Aurora said. “They sing those songs for adult females, not princesses who have not yet starting their Changing.”

            “But what do those songs mean?” Nike asked.

            “That is not for you to know yet,” Castor replied. “When you start your Changing, you will learn.”

            Luckily, flying through the Caves of Eros didn’t take long. Castor and Aurora let Nike take a break shortly after they entered the Kaikias region. They perched themselves on top of resting pillars where travelers usually rested before going in and out of the inner regions through the Caves of Eros. Nike looked at the path they would fly through to get to Regalia and noticed the number of residence caves that lined up the walls. She began to wonder what the males in Kaikias did for a living.

            Ares, on the other hand, already had some idea in his head.

            “Maybe I can become an explorer,” Ares said. “Maybe I can live in a cave near you.”

            “What makes you interested in exploring?” Eros asked.

            Ares hummed to himself. “Going to new places. I will get tired of the Hedone Grounds, and I already want to explore more of the Lachesis Plains.”

            “Yes, I know how much Ariadne likes to restrict our travel,” Eros replied. “She forgets that she was once fascinated with paths. Now, what else do you want to see, before Ariadne flies out here, demanding that I bring you back to the Lachesis Plains?”

            “Are your other explorer friends here?” Ares asked, and when Eros tried to think of an answer, Ares suddenly flew out of the cave. “Then we must find them!”

            Ares had no interest in Eros’s friends; he was actually out to find Aurora and Nike, and he needed an excuse to get away from Eros. He knew that Eros would shoot out of the cave to catch up with him, so he tried to find some tunnels to hide somewhere in the path they had taken when he found Nike perched upon one of the resting pillars. For a moment, he forgot about Eros possibly finding him, and he wondered whether or not he should approach Nike. He decided to turn back and wait until Nike would be on her way to Regalia when he suddenly heard her call his name.

            “Ares!” Nike bellowed and flew down to greet him. “Ares, what are you doing here?”

            “I am with my cousin Eros,” Ares replied. “He is looking for a new home cave here. Are… are you on your way to Regalia?”

            Nike nodded happily. “I am with Aurora and Castor. I have told you before, I am going there to learn English.”

            “And to see the Overlander?” Ares asked.

            “Maybe,” Nike replied. “Ares, you passed through the Caves of Eros to come here, right?”

            Ares flashed a blank face. “Yes, why?”

            Nike twirled her body and looked around to see if Castor and Aurora were listening. She saw that the golden and dark silver bats were deep in conversation, so she turned to Ares again and spoke in a hushed voice.

            “So, did you hear the songs they sang?”

            In truth, Ares heard them, but he could hardly understand their meanings. From what he knew, they were reserved for adults, but fliers in their Changing would try to learn them. Most of the younger children were completely unfamiliar to the songs, but some of the sneakier pups would try to spy on the Changing Fliers. Alala had spied on an older flier named Oedipus once, and she had told Ares and Telemachus everything.

            “Yes, why?” Ares said.

            “Do you know what they mean?”

            “Of course, I know,” Ares half-lied. “I know all about them.”

            Nike began to feel jittery. “Can you… can you tell me about them?”

            Ares cocked his head to the side, examining Nike’s excitable body language. She was rocking on her feet, her folded wings fluttered every now and then, her eyes were open wide with curiosity, and her ears were perked up. Since he was still a little puzzled about Nike not telling him about the Overlander, he decided to toy with her a bit, just as a petty comeback.

            “I do not know,” Ares sighed. “You did not tell me about the Overlander, so… I am not sure if I can tell you about the songs.”

            “But that was because I was not supposed to know in the first place, Ares.”

            “Neither was I, about the songs,” Ares said. “It is what it is.”

            “But, Ares,” Nike began to whine.

            Ares feigned an exasperated sigh. “It is what it is, Princess.” He then shook his head. “It is what it is.”

            Before Nike could object, Ares took off in another direction, pretending to be looking for something. That way, if Eros caught him, he would assume that Ares was still looking for Eros’s cave fellows, but Ares still had to come up with some sort of excuse to get away. He flew around a bit and hoped that Eros wouldn’t find him. Unfortunately, things didn’t always go according to plan.

            “Ares!” Eros called. “There you are! What were you doing?”

            Ares put on an innocent face for his older cousin. “Looking for your cave fellows, like I said.”

            “You do not know what they look like, nor do you know the echos sent back by their flight patterns,” Eros spat back. “Now, what is the real reason you fled?”

            “I said, to find your cave fellows,” Ares insisted.

            “No, you do not care at all for finding my cave fellows,” Eros replied. “You do not even know who they are. Quit lying, and tell me the real reason you fled.”

            For a moment, Ares just remained there, thinking of another lie to tell Eros while keeping an eye out for Nike and her two flying partners. He needed yet another way to get out of Eros’s reach, then he needed to follow Nike discreetly, and when he returned to Eros and Ariadne, he would need a good excuse for why he was gone so long. For a moment, he considered abandoning the plan, but he just couldn’t pass up the chance of meeting an Overland human. He snickered to himself. This would be the first time he met _any_ human _._

“I want to visit the land of the humans,” Ares confessed.

            “And why?” Eros said. “You will have much time in your life to visit. You do not need to do so as a child.”

            “But the Overlander will not have much time. I heard they never have much time. What if something happens to the Overlander before I get a chance to even see Regalia? What do you say to that?”

            When Ares stopped to catch his breath, Eros appeared stunned.

            “Overlander?” Eros whispered.

            “Did you not hear about that?” Ares asked.

            “Well, yes, I have, but I did not think that…” Eros trailed off. “Wait… the Overlander, _of course_! Of course you would want to see that.”

            Ares began to sulk. “And you will not let me go, will you?”

            To his surprise, Eros flashed a smile. “Of course, but not alone. I will go with you. I do not trust you to go alone, and you going without a companion will appear suspicious to adults.”

            “But you are not an adult,” Ares replied. “At least, not yet.”

            “No, but I am very close,” Eros said. “My mentioning that I am looking for a home cave in Kaikias is enough for most. Now come along. I know the way, and you do not need to follow Princess Nike in order to navigate your way.”

            _How did he know,_ Ares thought to himself, and he assumed that fliers in their Changing had an odd way of knowing what happens in children’s minds that adults do not. Soon enough, they took off, and Ares found himself following Eros straight out of the Fliers’ Land.

            Once Ares and Eros were outside of Kaikias, Ares noticed that there were no longer the several sets of caves for fliers to make their homes. Instead, there were the typical canyons and tunnels, and he noticed large, oval, brown things with a shimmery surface scamper about on the ground. The scampering creatures clicked to one another before running away, and Ares immediately wondered if he could eat one.

            “Those are Crawlers,” Eros said. “One of the many bugs on the prohibited diet list. It is said that, sometime after the humans made their home in the Underland, they determined that they were far more useful on the ground than in the stomach.”

            “Like Shiners? And Flutterers?” Ares asked. Though most of his diet consisted of fish, he consumed small insects from time to time, and he didn’t like the prospect of the prohibited diet list.

            “Yes. I assume that your little royal friend is learning all about it.”

            Ares lost interest in the Crawlers, and they soon coasted into the human’s land. The two bats flew over large patches of what Ares assumed to be “grain,” and Ares spotted several humans cutting up some of the plant and placing them into weaved pits that he could not yet name. When Ares let out a call to the ground, his own voice sent back images of small, upright beings that stood on two long limbs. Each little human used their upper limbs to control their tools, and when Ares was closer to the ground, he noticed something strange about these creatures. The humans’ upper limbs ended with a small, flat extension, each equipped with five thin, long outcroppings. Ares noticed that the humans used these outcroppings to manipulate all sorts of objects. He was about to ask Eros why humans needed such things until the answer came to him in the form of Regalia.

            Ares had heard stories of human work, but the sight of Regalia was impressive. The land dipped into some sort of valley, and stone outcroppings looked as if it grew naturally from the ground. For a moment, the little black bat had a hard time believing that this was the work of the humans, especially if they were as small as the ones he had seen in the grain field. As Eros and Ares flew closer, he noticed little spots of light dancing on the stone carved walls.

            “The humans like to contain fire,” Eros explained. “They are highly dependent on light.”

            “But why?” Ares asked. “They have voices, do they not? Why do they not just call into their world?”

            “Because they cannot see what their voice sends back, or so I have heard,” Eros said. “They can tell if another sound source is coming from their left or their right, but without light, they will only see pitch blackness, as dark as your fur.”

            Ares shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. He and Eros perched themselves upon what Ares learned was a “wall,” and he gazed at the human kingdom. Humans scampered between the outcroppings, occasionally going inside some of them, and Ares realized that he had trouble telling them apart.

            “They all appear the same,” Ares sighed. “Some are different sizes, but their faces are the same from here. Their skin, too. Is their fur all the same?”

            “I believe so,” Eros replied. “But they are far easier than the Crawlers, and they wear pieces of spinner silk, all in different colors. Come, I can show you the map makers.”

            “But I want to see the Overlander!” Ares protested, fluttering his wings in distress.

            “And we will,” Eros laughed. “And I can communicate with a few. Some of the explorers have taught me a little bit of English. I know of one mapmaker, and I think you will like him.”

            Ares sighed, but acquiesced. They didn’t have to fly far in order to meet the mapmaker; he lived in the outermost edge of the city, close to the grain fields and the wall. Ares and Eros simply had to float down to get to the entrance of his home. Eros pointed out one small outcropping to Ares and informed him that this was where the mapmaker lived.

            “I can push open the curtain and see if he is there,” Eros said.

            Eros took a few steps forward and pushed aside a beige sheet of spinner silk attached to the top of a stone arch. Ares listened closely to Eros’s greeting. It required Eros to lower the pitch of his voice unnaturally, and it seemed to require a lot of breath. Ares heard the voice of the human inside. The low-pitched human voice sounded oddly cacophonic, as if it were meant to be used as an irritation device. He gazed upward at the bats that flew over the city and assumed that they had gotten used to it. Ares hoped that he would get used to it soon. He couldn’t stand the thought of meeting the Overlander just to be irritated by their voice.

            “Come inside, Ares,” Eros said. “He is ready to meet you.”

            Ares cautiously stepped inside to see the human. His height was about the same as the length of one small adult’s wing, his skin was pale and almost furless, his eyes were some shade of purple, and the fur patches on his head were a stark white. Ares could trace the veins on the man’s skin, which appeared slightly wrinkled with age, and he looked at the outcroppings on the human’s upper limbs. They appeared nimble and precise, and when Ares saw the three-dimensional structures sitting in the human’s working space, he could see that they were quite capable.

            The man smiled and showed the outcroppings to the young bat. He said something that Ares couldn’t quite make out, and Eros had to clarify.

            “Fingers, they call them, and they’re attached to ‘hands’,” Eros said. “The humans make regular use of them, this man especially.”

            “What is his name?”

            Though the man couldn’t hear Ares’ high-pitched native speech, he offered his name. “Christopher.”

            To Ares’s surprise, Christopher outstretched his hand to touch the top of Ares’s head. The fingers slightly scratched a small patch of fur before they returned to Christopher’s pockets, and Ares watched as Christopher returned to his working space to perfect his three-dimensional structures.

            “Those are the maps for the tunnels,” Eros clarified. “He also makes them on strips of canvas. Many explorers share their information with him, and we are charting new routes everyday.”

            Christopher and Eros exchanged a few words, and Christopher walked toward a cave-like stone structure with a curtain in front of it. The older man pushed away the curtain, took out a circular-shaped stone with an odd-smelling fish on it, and held it in front of Ares.

            “It is fish held over fire,” Eros explained. “Many humans prepare and modify their food in this way. Methods of food preparation are oddly elaborate.”

            Ares sniffed it, a little alarmed by the smell of smoke that the fish emitted, and took a bite. The fire did something to the taste, but Ares sensed that the human added something to it. He detected a weirdly sweet coating on the fish skin. After one bite, Ares stopped eating. He much preferred his fish fresh from the stream.

            Christopher and Eros exchanged more words in English, and Christopher instructed Ares to eat more of the cooked fish. Though he didn’t want to, Eros insisted, saying that he shouldn’t hurt Christopher’s feelings by rejecting the meal.

            “If you want to associate with humans, you will learn to tolerate fire-prepared food.”

            With that comment, Ares sucked it up and ate the entire thing.

            Meanwhile, in the High Hall, Nike was sharing her first prepared meal with Aurora, Castor, other fliers, and their human bonds. Unlike Christopher’s fish, the meal in the High Hall was far more elaborate and far more expertly handled. Nike’s first cooked fish tasted much better than Ares’s.

            “How do you like your meal, Princess Nike?” asked one woman with a swollen abdomen and a gold ring around her head.

            “I do not eat it like this at home, Queen Judith,” Nike said, pausing to think of English words she knew. “We cannot make fire.”

            Though Nike tried to be polite and pay attention to every human at the table, there was one she couldn’t take her eyes off of: the Overlander. Though he wore clothes similar to the Underland humans, his dark brown skin, brown eyes, and black-and-grey hair made him stand out. Nike used the tricks Aurora taught her to differentiate the human faces when she gazed at him, despite not needing to, and she found that this man had traits that the Underlanders didn’t have. The Overlander’s lips were a bit more plump, the bottom half of his nose was a little wider, and his short black-and-grey head hair was so tightly curled that it appeared thick and coarse to the touch. When he exposed his palms, Nike noticed that they were oddly lighter than the rest of his body. She began to wonder why Overlanders appeared this way, and if all Overlanders looked like that, but she didn’t consider it polite to ask.

            “Name’s Fred Clark,” he had introduced himself earlier.

            “Your… name… is… Fred… Clark?” Nike asked.

            The Overlander had nodded. Now, she watched as he spoke with the Regalian monarchs and the other guests. For the most part, she could keep up with the conversation, but the Overlander would occasionally use words that had confused even the Underland humans.

            Aurora urged Nike to try and remember every human’s face. So far, she was able to tell apart Fred Clark, Queen Judith, and her husband, King Cornelius. Fred Clark was, of course, the Overlander. Queen Judith had a pregnant stomach, a straight nose that jutted outward, and wavy long hair held down by her gold crown. King Cornelius, like most other men, had a large build, hair that covered his chin, a hard jaw line, and a smaller nose with a bump on the end that made it appear to turn downward.

            “I can tell apart the monarchs,” Nike said to Aurora in Flier.

            “And what about the Queen’s family?” Aurora asked. “Can you point out her mother? Her mother’s mate? Her twin brother?”

            Nike struggled for a moment. She spotted an adult male who shared Queen Judith’s straight nose and wavy hair. He appeared rather muscular and his clothes featured various insignia that showed his military rank. Nike guessed that this was the twin brother.

            “What is his name?” she whispered to Aurora.

            “Why do you not ask him in English?” Aurora whispered back.

            Nike coughed and caught the man’s attention. “Excuse me, but what is your name? I forget.”

            The man flashed a half-smile and his violet eyes twinkled. “I am called Hamnet.”

            “He is my bond,” said one bat in Flier. “His mother, to his right, is called Solovet, and his mother’s mate is called Vikus. I can also point out members of Cornelius’s family, if you would like.”

            Nike had not met her before today. She was an unusually muscular female whose fur was silver at the top of her and black at her feet. Rather than appear in spots, the bat’s fur color transitioned like a gradient. The bat exchanged a look with Aurora, who seemed displeased with her actions, but the silver-black bat didn’t seem to care about Aurora’s disapproval.

            “Persephone, I need Nike to differentiate the human faces for herself,” Aurora shot back.

            “Calm yourself, Aurora,” Persephone replied. “Nike is still just a child, and I am sure that the humans will forgive these innocent mistakes.”

            “Some will, others will not,” said a brown-red bat known as Ajax.

            “Be gentle with the young princess,” said an older gray bat. “Just because you bond with the head of the Regalian army, it does not mean that you have to adopt her harsh demeanor.”

            “Nor do you have to adopt the pushover attitude of your bond, Euripedes,” Ajax retorted.

            “Why do the bats look so serious?” Fred Clark asked, effectively ending the Flier-filled conversation.

            “I have… hard time… learning names and faces,” Nike confessed to Fred Clark.

            The dark-skinned man’s lips widened into a friendly grin, and he outstretched his hand to touch the top of Nike’s head. He stood up from his chair, took a few steps toward her, and leaned so that his lips were near her ears. She then heard him speak in a hushed voice.

            “It’s okay, girl,” he laughed. “I got a hard time telling them apart too.”

            He gave her forehead a comforting scratch and she let out a sound that was some mix between a purr and a laugh. Fred Clark, apparently amused by her purring laughter, gave her head another scratch, and he gently patted her back before he took his seat again. Nike noticed from everyone else’s serious expressions that she and the Overlander must have behaved inappropriately, but she didn’t care. She grinned when she went back to eating. The thought of her and the Overlander doing something everyone else disapproved of made her feel a little rebellious.

            Fred Clark turned around in his seat and pointed out two small children standing beside a doorway.

            “Looking to crash a party?” Fred Clark teased the children.

            One man with a face similar to Cornelius’s appeared appalled. “Henry, Nerissa, what are you doing here?”

            Persephone stifled a laugh. “That man is Caius, and he is Cornelius’s brother. Next to him is his mate, Cordelia. She is the mother of Nerissa and Henry.”

            “Hello, Henry! Hello, Nerissa!” Nike bellowed, excited at the sight of children.

            Henry let out a laugh before he zipped out of sight, but Nerissa simply stood there with a solemn face. Immediately, the Underland humans seemed concerned, and Cordelia got up from her seat to soothe her daughter. They exchanged a few words that Nike couldn’t pick up, Nerissa pointed at Fred Clark, and everyone’s eyes suddenly shifted to him. The Overlander let out a deep sigh, and he left his seat to speak with Nerissa.

            “I saw you,” Nerissa said before shifting to big words that Nike couldn’t understand.

            Nike watched the young human girl cry as she spoke. Fred Clark tried his best to soothe her, but it did little to help, and Cordelia announced that she would have to excuse herself for the rest of the evening. She and Caius exchanged a few words before she left the High Hall and Fred Clark returned to his seat, his eyes solemn and his smile gone.

            “What is wrong with Nerissa?” Castor asked, picking at his dark silver fur.

            “She must have had another vision,” Aurora replied. “They are coming to her more and more often.”

            “Some pertaining to the Overlander,” Persephone added. “She has already predicted that he will go blind, and now he is slowly losing his vision.”

            “This concerns us,” Euripedes whispered. “As it may be related to the Prophecy of Sight.”

            “The Prophecy of Sight?” Nike asked. “How does it go?”

            “I will explain later,” Aurora said.

            Before Nike could protest, both the humans and the bats expressed alarm at two surprise guests. The bat princess looked up to see two male fliers, one almost finished with his Changing, and the other sporting familiar black fur and a mischievous expression. Neither of them landed in the High Hall. Instead, they simply circled above the dining table, waiting for the humans’ permission to sit among them.

            “Ares!” Nike squealed, forgetting that her friend wasn’t exactly supposed to be here.

            “Got a few guests y’all didn’t tell me about?” Fred Clark asked, and though Nike wasn’t familiar with all of his Overlandisms, she could guess what he meant in this context.

            “Who are you two, and why do you do this?” King Cornelius bellowed to them, bursting from his chair.

            “Cornelius, please, settle down,” Queen Judith whispered in his ear.

            Solovet and Ajax appeared as angry as King Cornelius was, Vikus, Euripedes, and Caius just looked awkward, and Hamnet and Persephone stifled their laughter behind big grins. Castor gazed at the older flying bat and immediately recognized him.

            “Ah, it is Eros,” Castor sighed. “I remember him directing us to the Hedone Grounds once.”

            “It is Ares! It is Ares!” Nike cried in Flier, getting so excited that she bumped into whoever was beside her. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me? Is it because of the Overlander?”

            The Underland humans finally turned to Fred Clark to see if he was bothered by Eros’s and Ares’s surprise appearance, but the older dark-skinned man was rather amused. He let out a laugh as he gestured toward the flying bats, indicating that he wanted them to stay, and the Underland humans were surprised that he didn’t mind them being here.

            “Why don’t you two come down so I can get a closer look?” Fred Clark chuckled.

            Eros nodded to Ares and they both landed in front of him.

            “Who are these two?” King Cornelius asked Aurora.

            Aurora let out a deep, ashamed sigh. “Eros is my cousin, son of Ariadne. As for Ares, he is the son of Penelope, my mother. I do not know either of them well.” She then spoke to Eros and Ares in Flier. “How could you two embarrass me in such a manner?”

            “You barely know me!” Ares spat back. “What do you care?”

            Fred Clark stood up and outstretched his arms to the two bats. “And who might you be?”

            “I… am… Eros,” Eros replied, and then gestured to his younger cousin with his wing. “Ares.”

            “Ares,” Fred Clark repeated.

            “Well, _he_ looks different,” Ares said to Nike, nodding his head toward the Overlander. “Good thing I can tell him apart.”

            “He has the same problem,” Nike reassured her friend.

            Fred Clark saw the two young bats looking at each other and gestured toward them both. “Does Ares have a thing for the pretty little lady?”

            “A thing?” Nike asked, and when his meaning slowly dawned on her, she went into a laughing fit that nearly caused her to fall off her chair.

            “What is the Overlander saying?” Ares hissed, but the other bats were too embarrassed to explain.

            “I am sorry about these… surprise guests,” Queen Judith sighed, rubbing her abdomen.

            “It’s fine, it’s fine, let them eat,” Fred Clark replied, waving his hand dismissively. “Look at Ares here. Got some muscle on him. You’re a strong fellow, aren’t you?”

            “What! Is! He! Saying?!” Ares spat.

            “That you are strong for your age,” Aurora replied. “Now you and Eros stay for a short time, eat little, and then wait outside so that I can lecture you both for embarrassing me.”

            By the end of the evening, Fred Clark had retired to his sleeping quarters, Queen Judith was visiting a nurse for pregnancy issues, Caius had left to check on his wife and daughter, and King Cornelius was wishing his guests goodnight. Vikus, as a diplomat, made sure to bid the guests farewell, and Solovet fumed with her bond over Eros’s and Ares’s surprise visit. Hamnet tried to calm his mother, to no avail, and there was little Persephone could do but hide her smile.

            “Did your mother grant you permission to stay the night?” Persephone asked Castor and Nike. “If not, then I suggest you return home soon, but I think that Aurora may spend an hour or so lecturing Eros and Ares.”

            “She has the right to,” Castor replied. “And I can take Nike home. I am grown, and I remember the way.”

            Persephone wasn’t entirely wrong about Aurora. At that very moment, the golden bat was perched on top of a smaller building, reprimanding her relatives for crashing the dinner held in the High Hall.

            “Just what were you two thinking?!” Aurora yelled at them. “You two arrived, uninvited, to a dinner hosted by _the Regalian monarchs_! Do you know how much trouble you two would have been had the Overlander not intervened on your behalf? What was the purpose of this!?”

            “To see the Overlander,” Ares defiantly spat back. “And the weird sister that keeps watching me without saying a word!”

            “How do you know… oh, never mind, I suppose Ariadne had told you,” Aurora huffed. “And Eros! How could you have taken him here?”

            “We were looking at my new home cave in Kaikias, and we decided to stop by,” said Eros. “We both have a love of exploring.”

            “ _This_ is what you call exploring?” Aurora shrieked. “Now the Regalian monarchs will view me without favor, thanks to you!”

            “Never mind,” Ares huffed. “I want to go back to Kaikias and stay the night there.”

            With that, the young black bat turned his back on Aurora and took off. Eros simply shook his head, refusing to look at his cousin, and prepared to depart in the same direction.

            “So much for wanting to know your young brother, right?” Eros said. “After you are done profusely apologizing to the humans, you can return and explain everything.”

            Eros and Ares returned to Kaikias that night, leaving Aurora fuming.

* * *

            “The Prophecy of Sight?” Nike asked as she, Aurora, and Castor flew back to the Capitol. “How does it go?”

            “I can recite the lines in English, and you can tell me if you understand them. Castor, you can play this game, too.”

            Castor and Nike agreed to play, and Aurora began.

            “An elder Over losing sight,” Aurora said, pausing for signs of understanding, and the continued. “Will soon speak up, and then prove right.”

            “What did he say?” Castor asked.

            Aurora thought of that night’s dinner in the High Hall, her wild relatives resting somewhere in Kaikias, and the time Nerissa wept and pointed at Fred Clark. She took a deep breath, tried to push those thoughts aside, and recalled the lines from the prophecy.

            “Says he, ‘Please, if I stay here, then there will be a fight, I fear.’”

            Though Nike didn’t understand right away, the meaning came to Castor quickly, and he explained the line to her. Nike nodded in understanding, and she asked for Aurora to continue the Prophecy of Sight.

            “Such are the rewards for those who truly have the sight,” Aurora said. “Now here comes the next verse of Sandwich’s prophecy, and it has to do with Nerissa.”

            “Why must Sandwich’s prophecies always be so troubling?” Castor sighed.

            Aurora shot him a look before continuing. “A child who claims to have the sight will see the first without his light.”

            Before Nike could interpret it for herself, Castor began to explain. “Basically, a human child with visions will see the ‘elder over without his light’. When humans say that someone is without light, it means that they will soon die.”

            Aurora coughed for his attention. “Says she, ‘You are nearly done. You will die without your sun.’”

            “Sun?” Nike asked. “What is a ‘sun’?”

            “The ‘sun’ is a great source of light and heat in the Overland,” Aurora explained. “It is somewhere high up, far out of anyone’s reach, and it provides so much light that the Overland humans do not need fire to see. It is also why the Overland is abundant with plant life, especially with unfathomably tall wood plants known as trees.”

            “Is that why Nerissa was crying?” Nike asked. “Is that the vision she saw earlier?”

            Castor and Aurora nodded.

            “Such are the rewards for those who truly have the sight,” Aurora repeated that line. “That is why Nerissa’s sudden vision concerned us so. The Prophecy of Sight is upon us.”

            “And what evil did the Overlander predict?” Castor asked.

            “Some sort of skirmish, I believe,” Aurora said. “Vikus has told Fred Clark quite a bit of our history with the Gnawers, and now Fred Clark fears that his presence may prompt the Gnawers to come for him. Solovet reassures him that he is well protected, but he has his doubts. Do you wish to hear the last stanza?”

            “Yes, I would,” said Nike.

            “The king of all who worship sight will rise in the predicted fight. Says he, ‘It was foolish not to see the true aim of my plot.’ Such are the rewards for those who truly have the sight.”

            Castor offered a quick translation to Nike, who immediately wondered just when King Cornelius would ‘rise’ in the skirmish that Fred Clark predicted. As they made their way home, Nike kept thinking about when the skirmish would occur, when Fred Clark would die, and just what King Cornelius would plot during the time of the Prophecy of Sight.

* * *

            When Eros and Ares returned to the Lachesis Plains from the Kaikias region, Ariadne hurled a long, loud rant at the two boys, and they figured that Aurora had told Ariadne everything. After Ariadne exhausted her voice, the boys remained silent. Eros kept his head lowered while Ares kept his back turned to her. Ariadne soon learned that Ares was more hurt by Aurora rejecting him at the High Hall than he was by getting in trouble with his aunt. At some point, Ariadne convinced Aurora to speak with Ares personally, but only when she was ready, and that wasn’t until a month after the initial incident.

            In the meantime, Aurora took Nike and Castor to the humans’ land for language immersion, and Ares entertained Telemachus and Alala with his story of the Overlander and his newfound interest in exploring. 

            Ares, Telemachus, and Alala had found a new tunnel to secretly access the Outer Capitol when they saw Aurora and Castor flying with Nike. Telemachus and Alala kept their gaze on the trio, but when Ares caught a glimpse of his sister’s gold fur, he scowled and looked away.

            “Are you still mad at her?” Alala asked.

            “At Aurora?” Ares asked. “No, that would mean I cared.”

            “But you do care,” Telemachus sighed. “Or you would not scowl like that.”

            Ares snapped at the both of them. “Because she did not say a word to me, and when she did, it was at the High Hall, with her telling me that I embarrassed her, and that is all she had to say to me!”

            “You mean when you saw the Overlander?” Alala asked.

            “Yes! When I saw the Overlander! Now stop talking about it!”

            Ares had been so caught up in his resentment that he didn’t notice Nike coasting by the tunnel entrance. The bat princess flew halfway by the entrance, picked up the last few words of Ares’s rant, and flapped her wings to slow down so that she could land. For a moment, she simply hovered in midair. It wasn’t until Alala and Telemachus pointed her out to a distraught Ares when she made her greeting.

            “Hello, Ares,” she said shyly when he turned to face her. “I… I was on my way to Regalia. I did not think you would be in the Outer Capitol.”

            Ares’s angered expression softened and his body language became more withdrawn. He backed up, making room for Nike to land, and he looked away.

            “Is something wrong, Ares?” Nike asked softly.

            “Ask your English tutor,” Ares huffed. “I do not want to talk about it.”

            Nike looked to Telemachus and Alala for help, but they simply shrugged. Sulking, Ares retreated deeper into the tunnel, and there was little his friends could do but watch him. Nike suddenly heard Aurora’s voice calling for her.

            “Princess Nike!” she heard, and she popped her head out of the tunnel to see where Aurora was.

            “Over here!” Nike called back, and when Ares realized that Aurora was coming, he growled at Nike.

            “What?” Nike asked. “Why are you mad at me?”

            “He does not want to talk to Aurora, I think,” Telemachus guessed.

            “Wait, why?” Nike paused for a moment. “Is it because of what happened in the High Hall in Regalia?”

            Ares only began to fume more and Nike took that as her cue to stop talking. When Aurora landed, she whispered to Nike that she should go wait by Castor, and she let out a low sound to indicate that Telemachus and Alala should leave.

            Nike left and Telemachus reluctantly headed deeper in the tunnel, Alala held her ground.

            “He does not want to talk to you,” Alala spat defiantly.

            “I think otherwise,” Aurora replied. “And I think it is time for you to leave us be.”

            Alala was about to argue about Aurora, but Ares shook his head and told her to leave. She followed Telemachus into the deeper parts of the tunnel, but not before pouting at Aurora, and Ares was left alone with his sister.

            “Ares,” Aurora said softly. “I am sorry.”

            He shifted slightly to face her. “For what?” he asked miserably.

            “For letting that one night in Regalia be the only time I have spoken to you,” Aurora replied.

            There were many things Ares wanted to accuse her of: ignoring him, spying on him, refusing to speak with him, berating him for wanting to know her, and then leaving it at that for a whole month. Since that night, he had swung between wanting to confront her angrily and wanting to avoid her entirely, but now that she was here, he found that he had no idea what he wanted.

            “You do not have to say anything if you do not want to,” Aurora said. “And you do not have to see me if you do not wish to do so.”

            Ares kept his gaze away from her, but Aurora could sense what he was feeling. She didn’t want those to be the only words she said to him, and to an extent, Ares knew that. In spite of what Aurora said, Ares still thought of his silence as a way to spite her. To an extent, Aurora knew this.

            “Yes, there are some that speak ill of your surprise presence, and I doubt that this surprises you,” Aurora sighed. “But there are few who do not think lowly of you.”

            Ares kept silent, but he peeked at Aurora, and she took it as her cue to elaborate.

            “There is Persephone, bonded to Hamnet,” Aurora said. “Hamnet is the Queen’s twin brother. There is the Overlander, Fred Clark, who still asks about you.”

            Ares was a little surprised by Aurora mentioning Fred Clark, but it paled in comparison to what she said next.

            “And there is a little royal boy, about four years of age, and like you, he is rather mischievous. He had come to the High Hall, leaving shortly before you came. As it turns out, he had been spying on us all, and he has heard rumors about your strength. Like the Overlander, he has been asking about you.”

            Aurora was about to leave, but not before saying one last thing.

            “You may come to Regalia, but do not come to the castle. You may come to the arena where children are trained. Many fliers visit to learn about human military training, and any flier in Regalia can direct you to it. I suspect that the royal boy will begin learning there soon.”

            “By the way, his name is Henry.”

            With that, she took off.

* * *

            “How is that friend of yours?” Fred Clark asked Nike one day. “What’s his name? Ares?”

            “He is fine,” Nike replied.

            “And where is he?” four-year-old Henry piped up. “I have heard about him, but no one will let me see him!”

            Nike shrugged. “I sometimes see him fly over the arena where you train, but not at the same time that you do. One day, though, your visits might coincide.”

            Aurora’s suggestion of language immersion did wonders. At the age of eight months old, Nike’s English was impeccable; she made very few mistakes in grammar, she could guess the meanings of unfamiliar words regardless of context, and she could read many words that followed the basic phonetics of English. From time to time, she still had trouble. Human tutors have offered to help her learn to read, teaching her various letter patterns that sound a certain way based on their position in the word, and when those tutors were busy, various friends she made would practice with her.

            Today, in a spacious room located on one of the higher floors in the Regalian castle, she practiced with a small group: Fred Clark, Henry, Nerissa, and her friend Ismene from the Capitol.

            “P… sssss… yeh,” Ismene struggled.

            “No, no, the ‘ps’ is just ‘ssss’ on it’s own,” Nike reminded her friend. “And the ‘y’ is one of those things… the one where a reader uses their throat.”

            “A vowel,” Fred Clark said.

            “The word is ‘psychic,’” Nerissa said. “The ‘ch’ does not sound like _ch_ in ‘cheese.’”

            Everyone looked at Henry, who was currently whispering his own pronunciation to himself.

            “It is not ‘s-eye-chick,’ Henry,” Nerissa teased.

            “I knew that!” Henry protested, crossing his arms and pouting.

            “What does it mean?” Ismene asked.

            “It is someone who sees things,” Nerissa explained. “It is my favorite word. A psychic can hear what you are thinking, and they can see things in the future.”

            “Like that guy,” Fred Clark recalled, snapping his fingers. “What’s his name?”

            “His name is Bartholomew of Sandwich,” Nerissa replied.

            Fred Clark shook his head. “That’s a mouthful. Hey, you know what? You wrote a copy of that prophecy during your writing lessons, right Nerissa? You got it memorized.”

            Nerissa nodded, and for a moment, she froze.

            Henry frantically turned to everyone before looked at his older sister. Nerissa’s face appeared blank, her eyes were lost and distant, and she remained absolutely still. Then, she shivered and cried.

            “What’s wrong, girl?” Fred Clark asked. “Another vision?”

            “My sister! My sister!” Henry began to cry.

            When Fred Clark saw Henry panicking and wringing his heads, he spoke to him. “I’ll watch her, you hear me? Your mom’s not too far, is she?”

            Henry shook his head, frightened. Nerissa rocked as she wept, and Henry went to hug her, but Fred Clark said otherwise.

            “You know where your parents are, right? You go with Ismene, get your parents, and I watch her here, understand?”

            Henry nodded, and he and Ismene fled the room. Fred Clark slowly approached Nerissa and scooped the young girl into his arms, gently rocking her and whispering things to get her attention.

            “What’d you see, girl?” he whispered.

            “You… you… you could not see…” Nerissa replied, whimpering. “You… you… could not… could not… breathe.”

            “I’m getting’ old, honey, that’s what happens,” Fred Clark reassured her. “I’ve seen many things in my life, Nerissa, I’m not worried.”

            This did nothing to soothe her, so he changed his approach. “Listen to me, kid. You’re not crazy. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay, understand?”

            She didn’t respond, but her sobs lessened. Nike had been told about Nerissa’s visions before. They came at random times, they could reveal the past or the future, and their vividness varied. Sometimes, Nerissa could only catch a few details before everything blurred. Other times, Nerissa would see it as if it were in front of her, and she could not distinguish between vision and reality.

            “You know about that guy who saw things,” Fred Clark whispered, continuing to rock her. “You tell me all about him, remember? You think of him. You think of how he isn’t crazy, you think of how he saw things like you, you think of that. Just think of that, okay?”

            By the time Henry and Ismene had brought in Cordelia, Nerissa’s sobs had reduced to mere watery eyes, and her breathing became more controlled. Fred Clark gave the little girl to her mother, who began to comfort her more, and Henry stared at them with solemn eyes.

            “She is going to be all right, Henry,” Cordelia reassured him. “Do not worry yourself.”

            “Sissy?” Henry asked, reaching for Nerissa’s leg.

            “I think reading lesson’s over today,” Fred Clark said, rubbing Nerissa’s back.

            Though Henry had a lesson over at the arena scheduled soon, he refused to leave until he knew that Nerissa was all right. Eventually, she stopped whimpering, and Fred Clark distracted her by testing her memory. He chose to have her recite her favorite prophecy: one that described a peacemaker.

            “On soft feet, by none detected,” Nerissa whispered, pausing to recall the following lines. “Dealing death, by most rejected.”

            “What’s next, kid?” Fred Clark asked, and Cordelia smiled at him.

            “Killed by claw, since resurrected,” she continued. “Finally, they intersected. Two lines meet, one unexpected.”

            When she finished, Cordelia showered her with praises, and Henry clapped for her. Finally, Henry was reassured that his sister was all right.

            “Now you have to go for training, Henry,” Cordelia told him.

            “All right,” Henry replied, and he gave Nerissa a hug and kiss. “Goodbye sissy.”

            When Ismene, Nike, and Henry departed, they met a flier and a human at the High Hall. The flier’s name was Andromeda, and she had gold-and-black speckled fur. As for the human, neither Ismene nor Nike recognized him, but Henry greeted him warmly.

            “Hello, Mareth,” chirped the boy. “They are coming with me to training.”

            “Imagine if my mother heard about this,” Ismene whispered to Nike in Flier. “She would be excited.”

            “She _is_ a general.”

            “Would you like to ride on Andromeda?” Mareth asked Henry.

            “Yes!” Henry announced, and Mareth scooped the royal boy into his lap.

            Ismene and Nike followed Andromeda to the arena. Nike had passed over it many times before, and she occasionally saw Ares hovering over it. Once, she had asked him why he kept looking inside, and he told her that he wanted to see a little four-year-old royal boy that Aurora had told him about. Nike had snickered to herself, remembering how Henry pestered her and Aurora about Ares, and she now hoped that Ares would coincidentally arrive at the same time she would today.

            Ares had just come back from a visit with Christopher when he coasted over the arena and saw Nike coming with two other fliers. On one gold-black speckled flier, he spotted two humans, both male. One was full grown, and the other a small child. He waited to see where the trio of bats landed. Then, he descended to the arena floor.

            Ares landed awkwardly beside Nike, surprising the group.

            “Ares!” Nike squealed.

            Ares saw the small boy pointing to him in excitement. _That must be Henry_ , he thought to himself. _But why are four-year-old humans so small?_

            He thought about his Changing, which was going to come in about a month, when Nike cut his musings short.

            “That is Henry,” Nike said to him.

            Henry slipped away from Mareth, ran to Ares, and stroked his fur with his small hands. Ares lowered his head to get a better look at the child. The boy peered back and sniffed his fur, only to immediately cover his nose and back away.

            “He stinks,” Henry complained to Nike.

            “So this is Henry,” Ares sighed. “I was expecting a little more.”

            “You do not get to say that,” Nike teased. “Being in the company of royalty is supposed to be an honor.”

            “I have been in ‘the company of royalty’ many times to know how annoying they can be,” retorted Ares, and Nike stuck out her tongue in response.

            “He is so mean to me,” Nike sighed.

            Ismene shook her head. “Once we start our Changing, you will spend less time with male fliers like him.”

            “There are the Caves of Eros,” Ares teased with a singsong voice.

            Ismene made gagging sounds and Andromeda ended the conversation.

            “Why must you speak so inappropriately?” Andromeda asked. “That is not the way to behave, especially not in the company of our princess.”

            Mareth escorted Henry to his assigned activities and Andromeda supervised a separate unit for young, visiting bats. Nike recognized many of them as the sons and daughters of generals, and she watched as Ismene began to follow Andromeda in that direction. The pearly white bat looked back at Nike and stopped.

            “Are you not coming?” Ismene asked Nike.

            “In a minute,” Nike replied.

            Satisfied, Ismene went with Andromeda to the flier unit. Nike nudged Ares and gestured to one of the many rows of seats that spectators used when watching games. Ares nodded, and they flew up a few stories to watch the training below.

            “Aurora told me not to come to the castle,” Ares said. “But she said I could come here.”

            “I have heard as such,” Nike replied. “Ariadne does not mind?”

            “No,” Ares replied. “Eros is now an adult, and he lets me stay in his new cave when I need to stop in Kaikias. From there, he comes with me to Regalia. Sometimes I visit a human known as Christopher while he scouts for tunnels near the borders. Where is Castor?”

            “He is training with Hyperion,” Nike said. “And he no longer cares about the Overlander.”

            “But… how?” Ares stuttered. “Overlanders are so rare!”

            Nike shrugged. “I guess he is more interested in being full-grown.” She then shifted the topic. “I remember when the Overlander asked you to stay for dinner at the High Hall.”

            Ares sighed. “I remember that night. What did the Overlander say that made you laugh so hard?”

            “That you had…” Nike began to chuckle. “Stirrings for me!”

            “He did not!” Ares protested as Nike’s chuckling turned into snorts and laughter. “He could not have! You are lying!”

            “No I am not!” Nike replied between laughs. “He thinks that! He really does!”

            “Liar!” Ares spat, but he found that he could not stay mad.

            Nike finally began to control her laughter. “Do you still fight with Icarus and his friends? What are their names?”

            “Agon, Circe, and Nyx,” Ares replied. “And yes, he still tries to fight me. I hope I hit my Changing sooner. He will not challenge me then.”

            “Why does he challenge you?” Nike asked softly.

            “He has fought me before, but I have won every time, and he does not want to end with a loss,” Ares answered. “So he starts a fight over any conflict. If Telemachus or Alala or I have gone into ‘his’ play area, he will fight me, and when he loses, he will gossip about me to save face.”

            “I was there for one of the fights, about two months ago,” Nike said. “He said you were songless.”

            “I remember.”

            “Ares?” Nike whispered. “Was that true, what he said?”

            Ares remained silent for a while, and Nike thought about the possible answers to her question. Perhaps he was songless, perhaps he couldn’t choose which one to learn first, perhaps he didn’t hear many songs in his life, perhaps he learned one particularly late, perhaps even after his first flight, perhaps being songless was a personal choice of his, perhaps….

            “No,” Ares said.

_Perhaps he just learned it a little late_ , Nike thought to herself. _Perhaps it just takes some longer than others, perhaps…_

            “I learned my first song at birth.”

            Nike was too surprised to say anything. For a moment, she thought that Ares was trying to play a prank, or trying to come up with some sort of impressive story to bolster his image, perhaps as a reaction to the rumors of him being “songless.” But then she paid further attention to him. His confession had been soft-spoken, his wings had been closed, as if he were trying to shrink himself, his gaze was downward, away from hers, and when Ares had stopped speaking, he did not appear proud.

            “I do not think you would believe me,” he said. “I expected that.”

            “I just do not understand.”

            If anyone else had confessed the same thing, and had been telling the truth, Nike would just assume that the confessor was unusually intelligent, or some sort of prodigy. Ares, too, was a prodigy of sorts, but all of his feats had been related to strength. Ares was no fool, but Nike didn’t expect him to be a genius, nor was that the conclusion she came to now. She knew there was some other reason he confessed this today.

            “What was your first song?” Nike was about to ask, but she didn’t even say the last word of her question before Ares let out a series of sad notes that bounced off the enclosed spectators’ space and sent shivers down her spine.

            Her heart sank. Even when Ares finished singing, the somber feeling lingered. Nike was afraid to close her eyes. She needed to know that these spectator spaces in the arena existed before Ares’ song, and that they were made only of stone. But even when she kept her eyes open, even when she saw the hand-carved stonewalls in front of her, she couldn’t help but think that this space was made entirely out of lost souls of the dead. She recalled the flier being mourned, the one she had met at birth, with her swelling abdomen and soft smile. Nike vaguely recalled the sound of her voice, and the mournful notes replayed in her head. _This song belongs in the Thanatos Chamber_ , she thought sadly, _this song does not belong here_. But thanks to the song, the confined space was filled with the memory of _her_. When Nike looked at the mourned flier’s son, she saw that, although his body was here, his mind was a million miles away. Suddenly, she began to sob.

            The sound of Nike’s weeping brought Ares back.

            “Nike, I am sorry, I did not mean to,” Ares sighed, stepping closer to her. “Please, Nike, I am so sorry.”

            The sound of Nike’s cry brought in several alarmed bats. Andromeda came first, followed by another coach neither child met, and a number of flier children came to see what had happened. To Ares’ surprise, Icarus was one of them.

            “What has happened?” Andromeda asked. “Are you hurt, Princess?”

            Nike shook her head. Ares felt terrible for Nike, and he saw that Andromeda and the unnamed coach shared his concern, but he knew that some of the present fliers assumed it was Ares’s fault. At that point, Ares wasn’t sure whether he should try to soothe her or go on the defensive in case any accusations came up.

            “I bet he did it!” Icarus shouted, gesturing toward Ares. “Ask him what he did! He has done _something_!”

            Icarus then flew down to Ares’s side. “I bet you have done _something_!”

            “What I did,” Ares growled at Icarus. “Was prove that I was not songless.”

            “Liar!” Icarus shouted.

            “Stop this!” said the unnamed coach. “Ares, could you tell us?”

            Ares found that he couldn’t explain without turning into a sobbing mess himself, so he simply kept his mouth shut and took off. In retrospect, he realized that it probably wasn’t the best move, and that the adults would think he thought he was in trouble, but he had been too confused about his own feelings to think about it at the time. Ares headed toward Christopher’s home, where he knew Eros would be, and Icarus interpreted this move as an admission of guilt.

            “Do not think about that songless boy,” Icarus shook his head just as Nike started to control her tears. “He is not good for much.”

            Nike couldn’t even say anything. Instead, she glared at the orange-furred bat, bared her teeth, and launched herself at him. The move surprised Icarus so much that he had little time to react. He simply stumbled backward as Nike stopped herself from crash landing into him last minute. The low-pitched growl she let out surprised her. When she felt everyone’s gaze on her and realized what she had done, she began to sob again.

            Ismene, who had been hiding behind the unnamed coach, spoke up.

            “Someone bring Aurora!” she called.

            Andromeda and the unnamed coach whispered to themselves, and the coach agreed to fly off while Andromeda supervised the children. When the coach returned with Aurora, the gold bat insisted that Nike have a bit of privacy, and everyone left them alone. Aurora listened to Nike’s account of what happened, and Aurora decided that, later, after she brought Nike home, she would find Ares.

            At around the same time, Ares had met Eros outside Christopher’s home and told him the story. Eros didn’t ask any questions, nor did he make Ares want to reveal more than he was comfortable with. He only invited the young bat inside Christopher’s home, and the elderly cartographer let Ares look at the three dimensional maps while he brewed a calming broth for him to drink.

            On occasion, Ares would see Christopher teaching his craft to young humans, but Ares never spoke to these students. For one, Ares didn’t know enough English. He could only pick up some words here and there that Christopher used frequently, but never enough to form a coherent sentence. Despite knowing these words, most human speech sounded like incoherent babble to him. Sometimes he wished he got English lessons that Nike did, but he wasn’t sure if he had the mental discipline to sit through them.

            Aurora finally found Ares just a few weeks before his Changing. She had been accompanying Nike on a trip to Regalia when she found Eros and Ares in Eros’ new home cave. Luckily for them, Eros’ new cave fellows were away at work, so she was able to talk to them in peace.

            “Eros,” Aurora said as she landed.

            “Aurora,” he greeted back.

            Nike landed softly behind Aurora and peered into Eros’s home cave. She saw Ares hanging from one ledge situated just before a small tunnel and gestured to him. The black bat said hello.

            “What brings you here?” Eros asked Aurora.

            “Nike wishes to stop and see Ares before heading to Regalia,” Aurora replied. “I obliged, for personal reasons.”

            “And what are those?” Ares asked.

            “Like I said, they are personal,” Aurora replied. “But Nike wanted to tell you something.”

            Nike flew right next to Ares’s spot and hung from there. Now side by side with Ares, she nudged her wings against his and let out a friendly purr.

            “I have not seen you since the incident,” Nike whispered.

            “Is that was this is about?” Eros asked. “He has told me some, but I do not know if his account differs from the one you have heard.”

            “I suspect it does not,” Aurora replied. “But she needed to ease her mind. That is why I brought her here.”

            “Ease your mind?” Ares whispered to Nike. “I do not understand.”

            “There was something I wanted to show you,” Nike replied. “Turn to face the tunnel going in.”

            “What do you plan to show me?” Ares asked as they shifted their positions.

            Nike let out a soft purr. “I will show you my first song.”

            Ares didn’t even need to ask what it was when he heard it. Notes typically present in a comedy song and notes expressing longing wove together, creating something that was altogether bittersweet. Her demonstration not only showed technique, but a stronger, more concrete and genuine understanding of the emotions than she had when she first sang it. Aurora and Eros recognized what Nike was doing, and they too joined in.

            Ares was the last to join the song. Fumbling through both the notes and feelings he couldn’t quite grasp, he felt a little self-conscious, but his attempt made him feel like he had done something about the gap in his heart that he didn’t know he had. When the song came to its conclusion, Ares sighed, and the two children rested against each other in silence. Ares didn’t thank her verbally, nor did Nike expect it. Their awkward embrace was enough to express what they needed.

* * *

            The two bats finally began their Changing.

            Ares’s and Nike’s experiences were different. Ares’s body became lean and toned, and he found that his appetite increased. Eros explained to him that his appetite change was a prelude to a growth spurt, which Ares felt a little excited about, and he knew such growth spurts would be accompanied by further development of his muscle. He would try to hasten his muscle development by exercising frequently, much to the amusement of his friends Alala and Telemachus, and they would sometimes tease each other about what developments their Changing brought them. Alala, for the most part, was able to brush off the jokes, but both Telemachus and Ares found themselves getting angry for seemingly little reason.

            Nike’s body remained as streamlined as a flier’s needed to be, yet it started to store some fat. Queen Athena, along with her aunts Calliope and Parthenope, explained that her body was becoming more similar to that of an adult, and that she would soon get her Bleeding. Nike had heard some details about Bleeding before. She had heard that it occurs monthly, and that females had a way of cleaning themselves. Once, she recalled the sight of a sloppy adolescent female letting blood drip down her leg. The female had rushed to a cleansing stream to rid herself of it before she flew some place for the sake of isolation. Nike listened as her mother and aunts explained how to deal with Bleeding and what sort of pains to expect, and they informed her that they would soon have to discuss the matter of mating.

            Soon, both Ares and Nike learned what adolescent and adult bats meant by “experimentation.” As their bodies changed, they both became aware of new feelings, often referred to as “Stirrings”. Their respective mentors informed them that these new urges were related to mating processes, and that they could vary in intensity, ranging from constant and overwhelming to nothing at all. Adolescent bats were discouraged from engaging with mating partners in the Caves of Eros, but when these adolescents summoned peers of their own gender for experimentation, the adults tended to look the other way.

            “Better understand your Stirrings with your friends than end up confused or in trouble,” Eros had once joked.

            “Telemachus is already asking me,” Ares confided. “And I hear Icarus already has peers of his own.”

            Eros shrugged. “Do things on your own terms, but do not shun your Stirrings because of shame. Everyone your age is as confused as you are, and they have their own means of navigating it. Do not be embarrassed by the scents you emit, either. No one will mock you for something that they, too, have undergone. They may joke, but in good fun. Now fly, you!”

            Meanwhile, Nike handled her newfound Stirrings in stride. While she began to appreciate the body forms and flight patterns of her friends, she did not let herself feel negatively overwhelmed by them. Instead, she welcomed the giddiness that Stirrings brought. Whenever she flew by common play areas, she found some males gazing curiously at her before looking away in embarrassment. She laughed because she, too, felt such nervousness, but she liked to maintain some air of grace. She would sometimes practice flight patterns that she knew would elicit awe from fellow bats in their Changing, and when she associated with female friends of her age, she had no trouble finding a peer that would extend an invitation to her. Sometimes she would accept and sometimes she would politely decline. For the most part, she enjoyed the prospect of maturing into an adult.

            During their Changing, bats associated more and more with other fliers of one’s own gender. Nike and Ares made a point of maintaining their friendship, but Nike found herself spending more time with Ismene and other girls, while Ares began associating more and more with Telemachus. Alala, who was so accustomed to having Ares and Telemachus as her playmates, became annoyed when they began to exclude her.

            “Do you not have _peers_ to seek out?” Ares asked when Alala barged in on them.

            “No, actually, I find myself identifying with them less and less,” Alala spat. “Not that you would care to know.”

            “What do you mean by this?” asked Telemachus.

            “I am not sure if it is something you would understand,” Alala confessed. “I have asked females if they had had feelings like mine, but they appeared baffled.”

            “You say females like you are not one,” Telemachus replied.

            Alala began to stammer. “Well, I, uhh, there is, ugh, I am not sure if I… oh forget it.”

            After that conversation, Alala’s behaviors changed. Whenever Ares did his routine exercises, Alala asked if she could join, and Ares raised no objections. Together, they worked up their strength. Ares complimented her on her efforts, but she lamented on it not coming to her as easily as it did to him. Ares tried to reassure her that she was doing well, but she never appeared satisfied.

            Some time during one of Nike’s visits, Alala shared her complaints.

            “My muscles do not tone as easily, and my body still holds fat,” Alala sighed.

            “The body fat is natural in us,” Nike tried to reassure her.

            Alala just huffed. “Natural in _you_ , maybe, but I do not want it! I want a growth spurt, I want strength, and I want– _ahhhh!”_ Alala spotted blood dripping down her leg. “I want a life without _this.”_

            Ares and Telemachus wrinkled their noses at the blood, but Nike extended her sympathy. “I have had Bleeding too. It is not hard to deal with. The pain lessens and there are means of hygiene.”

            “That is not the point!” Alala shrieked.

            “The Bleeding means your body will soon be able to bear young,” Nike said awkwardly.

            “I do not want to _bear_ them, I want to _patrol_ them,” Alala growled through gritted teeth. “This is ridiculous. Why do I feel this?!”

            None of Alala’s friends knew. Before long, the females would begin to learn how to rear their children, along with anything they wanted to know about various occupations. The males wouldn’t be involved in the child-raising lessons. Instead, occupational studies became more in depth, and on occasion, they would fly past the Caves of Eros and into the outer regions to look for a place to live. Ares and Telemachus both developed an interest in exploring, so they sought out homes in the region of Kaikias. They found a vacancy close to Eros, and Ares asked Eros to occupy that home until they could move in as adults.

            Alala became particularly resistant to her friends’ and family’s insistence on learning to raise children, and Alala had little interest in female peers. Instead, she went along on Ares’s and Telemachus’s on exploration, and she would often accompany them to Kaikias.

            “Why do you want to live with us?” Ares asked when Alala saw their new home.

            “Kaikias is the closest region to Regalia,” Alala replied. “And the map-makers live in Regalia, right?”

            “Do you ever plan on having a female peer?” Telemachus asked.

            Alala huffed. “On my first birthday, or, actually, when I make a visit to the Caves of Eros. I will spend my first birthday holding this cave until you arrive.”

            Some time around their tenth month, Ares and Nike saw the Overlander for the last time.

            “I can’t see anymore,” Fred Clark lamented to Nike. “They let me talk to whoever I want because they know I’m gonna go soon.”

            “What do you mean _go_?” Nike asked. “Do you… do you mean the prophecy?”

            Fred Clark nodded. “I suppose Nerissa was right about me, but I don’t know about the rest. I’ve been scared about the idea of conflict happening here, and I don’t know if that’s gonna come true, but if it does, I hope it does after I go.”

            “What is he saying now?” Ares asked in Flier. “I hope it is not about Stirrings.”

            “Do not joke in such a manner,” Aurora reprimanded him.

            “He is talking about the prophecy,” Nike whispered.

            “I know little about it,” Ares confessed, but he would learn all about it later.

            “So are you grown now?” Fred Clark asked. “You sound a little older. When was the last time I saw you?”

            “Not entirely, Fred Clark,” Nike replied. “We are in the middle of our Changing. In two months, we will be adults, Ares and I.”

            “The last time you saw Ares was three months ago,” said Vikus, one of the human diplomats who oversaw Fred’s care. “He was only half-grown then. Your last meeting with Nike was somewhat more recent.”

            Fred Clark let out a deep sigh. “It’s strange. When I came down here, I always wanted light around. Now I’m blind, and it doesn’t make a difference.”

            “Light is a strange thing,” Vikus said softly, reaching to hold Fred’s hand. “In a way, you do not have to fear losing yours.”

            “I’ve never been scared of that,” Fred Clark said, and Aurora had to explain to Ares and Nike that, in this context, Fred Clark didn’t mean “light,” but “life.”

            “The humans see light and life as intertwined,” Aurora said to them. “They wonder if Fred Clark’s inability to see light is prophetic in nature.”

            “You will have to tell me what that prophecy is later,” Ares said. “There is a lot about this that is confusing me.”

            “Come here, Ares,” Fred Clark said, stretching out his hand in what he thought was Ares’s general direction.

            Ares stepped forward and let Fred touch his muzzle. “I wish I could speak to the Overlander.”

            “Any one of us could translate for you,” Nike offered.

            “No, it would not be the same,” Ares sighed, and he realized that even if he could, he would not know what to say.

            Some time after that last meeting, Fred Clark died, and all of Regalia mourned.


End file.
